1. See “Introduction,” Selected Poetry of Robert Browning (New York: Modern Library, 1951), p. xxii.Google Scholar

2. See my review of Browning's Analysis of A Murder: A Case for The Inn Album (Marquette, Mich.: Northern Michigan Univ. Press, 1969)Google Scholar in Victorian Studies, 15 (1972), 385–86.Google Scholar

3. A grant from the University of London, Central Research Fund, made possible my original work on the manuscript. Mr. E. V. Quinn, Librarian of Balliol College Library, and his assistant, Miss Paddy Harding, were most willing to provide essential materials and helpful advice. And Dr. Michael Slater, Birkbeck College, University of London, gave me many helpful suggestions during the writing of this paper.

4. British Library Add. MS. 43,485, fol. v.

5. The complete MS of The Inn Album is in Balliol College Library, and is bound with Red Cotton Night-Cap Country (1873) in brown morocco. The front cover is stamped in gold with the Browning family coat of arms. The poems together are labeled Ballio! MS. 388.

6. I hope my method of line citation will not be confusing to the reader. Although neither the MS, First Edition, nor Revised Edition contains line numbers, I have assigned numbers in order to produce a consistent standard of reference and to make reference to specific lines possible. Line numbers cited refer to the same lines in the First Edition, the Revised Edition, and the MS, even though the two editions have more lines than the the manuscript. In order to indicate a passage as exactly as possible, I have assigned line numbers to half-lines as well as to full lines.

7. A Browning Handbook, 2nd ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1955), p. 385.Google Scholar

8. This ellipsis is Browning's.

9. Browning's Latin (let not a young man slay an old man in front of the people) is a variation on ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet (let not Medea kill the children in front of the people). See “Poetica, Ars,” The Epistle of Horace, ed. Wilkes, Augustus S. (London: Macmillan, 1896), p. 185.Google Scholar

10. See my note “Browning's ‘L.D.I.E.,’” American Notes and Queries, 8 (1969), 52.Google Scholar

11. During the proof-stage of revision, Browning added two lines below 1. 60.

12. And “mild” was corrected to “calm” in 1. 60 (the phrase with “calm” appears throughout the poem).

There were, of course, other places on the manuscript where groups of lines were added. When the Younger Woman expresses surprise over the Elder Woman's choice of mates, three lines are jammed at the top of the first leaf of p. 23 in answer to a question added at the end of p. 22 (see III.231 ff.); also at this point, ll. 238–41 are interlined. In IV.233–37, five additional lines were given to the lord in order for him unknowingly to make clear his misunderstanding regarding the nature and circumstances of the Elder Woman's marriage; and early in I, where the Elder Man describes the kind of gambling he and the Younger Man have been engaged in through the night (ll. 22–25), more detail was offered. In addition to these clusters of five and four lines added, a few points in the MS show three consecutive lines attached to the original composition (see, for example, IV.201–03, 317–19).

13. The poem was apparently written on folio sheets, for this would account for Browning's original numberings being only on every other page.

14. Additional changes were made in this passage in the proof-stage.

15. See II.464–65, VII.51–52. For the same purpose, Browning also added V.104 to the MS.

16. Sunk = “left out of consideration” (OED, sense 25e).

17. IV.316–18, 324, also added to the MS, have to do with the Elder Man's misunderstanding about the Elder Woman's marriage.

18. Also on the MS Browning has changed “Could I spare my face” to “Could I sacrifice—.”

19. There are some running word changes that are of little significance because Browning, it seems, changed his intention before he wrote enough to hint at his original purpose.

20. Browning also changed “I resumed” to “he resumed” in the line that follows, a further step in clarification. And in the 1875 revisions, we see that “a … tongue” has become “his tongue.”

21. In the 1875 revisions, he further changed, in l. 675, “Be” to “Prove.”

22. The word “and” appears to have been crossed out, then restored.

23. Ess and Psidium are perfumes that were fashionable in 1875.

24. Earlier in the poem, the Elder Man had spoken cryptically of a great loss in his life in terms of a ball lodging in his shoulder that he must live with for the rest of his life.

25. See my “Note on Section VIII of Browning's The Inn Album,” Studies in Browning and His Circle, 1 (Spring, 1973), 23.Google Scholar

26. Nevertheless, Browning still offended the critics by allowing her to speak critically of her husband to the man who had seduced her. [Hutton, Richard Holt], Spectator, 48 (11 12 1875), 1556Google Scholar, says: “the lady has been describing her husband, the poor Evangelical clergyman, in a style of harsh contempt which strikes us as singularly undignified and teacherous, since it occurs in so very unnecessary a confidence to the lover who had betrayed her. …” Hutton's authorship is established by Tener, Robert H., “Richard Holt Hutton's Criticism of Five Nineteenth Century Poets,” an unpublished Ph.D. thesis at Birkbeck College, University of London (1960), p. 653.Google Scholar

27. See my “Browning's Case for the Elder Man,” Studies in Browning and His Circle, 2 (Fall, 1974), 21–31.Google Scholar

28. See above, n. 4.

29. On 19 Nov. 1875 the First Edition was published by Smith, Elder & Co. This date is indicated in a letter of 19 Nov. 1875 from Swinburne, to Chatto, Andrew (The Swinburne Letters, ed. Lang, Cecil Y. [New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1960], III, 86)Google Scholar. The 211 pages plus title pages of the octavo volume were bound in boards of green cloth, and 2,000 copies at seven shillings were printed. A full bibliographical description of the 1875 edition is given in Broughton, Leslie N., Northup, Clark S., and Pearsall, Robert, Robert Browning: A Bibliography, 1830–1950 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1953), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

30. An alteration consistent with this one is found in V.65: “You still do seem to me who heard your lies” to “You still do seem to me who worshipped you.”

31. In IV.658 ff. the Elder Woman adamantly denies being attracted to his “bait.”

32. See V.157–61 and VII.373–82; and in VIII.14, the Elder Woman speaks of staying the lord's “venom”; the MS had her staying the lord's “malice.”

33. Active verbs were also put in the place of prepositions and expletives, for example, “proved” for “that” (I.328), “Scares” for “For” (VII.295) and “feat” for “too” (VII.380).

34. Also in this line, “brand-new” appears for “bran-new” only in the 1889 edition. Dickens used “bran new” (see The Pickwick Papers, ed. Patten, Robert L. [Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1975], p. 467).Google Scholar

Browning again found a substitute for “thing” in II.171, in this instance “feat.”

35. The First Edition also changes “returned” to “to bear.”

36. The second of these lines was interlined, it appears, at a time after the original writing.

37. The Saturday Review, 30 (4 12 1875), 716Google Scholar, noted this “strange disregard of grammatical rule.” Alfred Domett commented on Browning's reaction to this error; see Horsman, E. A., ed., Diary of Alfred Domett, 1872–1885 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1953), p. 162.Google Scholar

38. The Inn Album, along with Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, is in volume twelve. The 311 pages plus title pages and “Contents” are, like the other volumes, bound in brown cloth boards. See Broughton, , p. 36Google Scholar. Although Browning was in the process of making additional minor corrections and changes in his collected works during 1889, he died before getting to The Inn Album.

39. Mrs. Orr, Sutherland, Life and Letters of Robert Browning (London: Smith, Elder, 1891), p. 403.Google Scholar

40. The 1875 edition has “Witness yourself ignore what afterpangs.…”

41. See, for example, I.68, 73; II.592; V.46; VII.21; VIII.5.

42. See also V.151; the 1889 edition restores a needed apostrophe omitted in 1875.

43. For another example, the MS (II.376–77) has “Her frown forbids! / The steam congeals once more! …” The 1875 edition has omitted punctuation following “forbids,” but the Revised Edition supplies a colon.

44. See Neville, Ralph, London Clubs: Their History and Treasures (London: Chatto and Windus, 1911), p. 263.Google Scholar

45. Of a more minor nature, in V.344, the First Edition ends a quotation with a single quotation mark when it begins with a double quotation mark. The Revised Edition does not correct this; thus the MS alone stands correct in this instance.