For permission to consult, and quote from, manuscripts of poems, letters, and other materials we wish to thank Sir John Murray and the following institutions: Balliol College, Oxford; Boston Public Library; Brigham Young University; British Library; University of Chicago; Eton College, Windsor; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (Houghton Library, Widener Library); Huntington Library, San Marino, CA; Indiana University Library (Lilly Library); University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City (Special Collections); Lancaster University (Ruskin Library); University of London (Sterling Library); University of Manchester (John Rylands Library); Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA; Morgan Library, New York (formerly Pierpont Morgan Library); Newberry Library, Chicago; New York Public Library (Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection; Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundations; Carl J. Pforzheimer Library); National Library of New Zealand (Alexander Turnbull Library); Princeton University, NJ (Robert H. Taylor Collection); Pushkin Academy, Leningrad; Somerville College, Oxford; Syracuse University, NY (George Arents Research Library); Texas A & M University; University of Toronto Library; the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum (National Art Library); Wellesley College Library, Wellesley, MA; Yale University Library, New Haven, CN (Beinecke Library and Tinker Collection).
We owe a particular debt of gratitude to the Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University, Waco, TX, both for permission to quote and for unstinting assistance of other kinds, including the award of Visiting Fellowships to two of the editors. We personally thank Rita Patteson, the current Director; her predecessors Stephen Prickett, Mairi Rennie and Betty Coley; the Curator of Printed Books Cynthia Burgess; Kathleen Williams, and other members of staff at ABL who have helped us so unfailingly.
For institutional support including study leave, research trips, research materials, and assistance with the preparation of the typescript, we thank Boston University, De Montfort University, King’s College, Cambridge, King’s College London, University of Manchester, University of Sheffield, University College London, and the University of London Central Research Fund. We would also like to thank the British Academy for its generous support.
We acknowledge indispensable assistance not only from the published volumes of The Brownings’ Correspondence, but personally from its editors, Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis. We likewise acknowledge the fund of knowledge accumulated, and generously shared, by members of the Browning Society, making special mention of Michael Meredith. We have benefited from the work of previous and current editors of Browning, both collected editions and single volumes, including the Ohio/Baylor edition led by Roma A. King, Jr., the Oxford English Texts edition led by the late Ian Jack, the Penguin Poetry Library edition by the late John Pettigrew and Thomas J. Collins, Richard Altick’s edition of The Ring and the Book in the same series, and Paul Turner’s Oxford University Press edition of Men and Women.
Many individual colleagues, friends and family members have given us help and encouragement: Sylvia Adamson, Isobel Armstrong, Rosemary Ashton, Siward Atkins, Janet Bately, Edmund Baxter, Roy Bolton, Roger Brooks, Penny Bulloch, Giovanna Cattini, Berry Chevasco, Dennis Crowley, Christine Dymkowski, Janet Fairweather, Mark Farrell, Philip Ford, the late Wendy Gibb, Greer I. Gilman, Michael Halls, Judith Hawley, Cathy Henderson, Philip Horne, Wendy Hunter, Luba Hussel, Elizabeth Jackson, Patricia Johnson, David Kastan, Sheila Kay, Samantha Matthews, Britta Martens, Karl Miller, Charlotte Mitchell, Laura Morgan, the late Eric Mottram, John North, Leonée Ormond, Pat O’Shea, Kenneth Palmer, Yopie Prins, Richard Proudfoot, the late Philip Radcliffe, Bruce Redford, Christopher Ricks, Adam Roberts, Gill Spraggs, Andrew Stauffer, Guilland Sutherland, John Sutherland, Peter Swaab, Qing-Sheng Tong, Virginia Mason Vaughan, René Weis, Helen Weston, Frances Whistler, John Whitley, Rosemary Whitley, Neil Williams, Sarah Wintle, Angela Woolford, Jack Woolford, and Henry Woudhuysen.
This volume includes work done under the auspices of the first General Editor of the Annotated English Poets series, F. W. Bateson, who gave valuable guidance at the outset of the project; his successors, John Barnard and Paul Hammond, have been equally helpful in their scrutiny and support.