Title: Sonnets from the Portuguese
Author: Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Publication: New York: Barse & Hopkins, 1910.
Description: Barse & Hopkins was best known for publishing gift books with a focus on classic titles. This edition of Sonnets from the Portuguese is from Barse & Hopkins' Carleton Series. It is printed on laid paper with untrimmed edges, in a brown limp suede binding, stamped in gilt on the front cover, with green watered silk endpapers and a green ribbon marker. Includes a frontispiece portrait of the poet and title page with gilt ornamental border. In the original box with printed paper label adhered to the box, reading "Barse & Hopkins, Sonnets from the Portuguese, Mrs. Browning, Carleton Series." The box contains a piece of patterned textile, which was presumably used to wrap the book in the box. Octavo, 7.5 x 4.5 inches; 90, [6] pages, [2] leaves of plates.
Box has two split corners. Front silk pastedown has some small losses and cracks not affecting the structural integrity of the book. Very Good+. An attractive and clean copy, unusual in this condition and with the original box.
"Sonnets from the Portuguese" is a collection of love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning between 1845 and 1846 for her future husband Robert Browning and first published in 1850. Elizabeth was hesitant to publish the poems due to their personal nature, but was encouraged by Robert to publish them. To conceal their personal nature, she titled the collection "Sonnets from the Portuguese," so that the poems would be viewed as translations, rather than her own original works.
