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A Strafford Manuscript in the Lord Chamberlain's Office Records

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Anneliese Meidl
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Extract

When in 1970 Gordon Pitts edited Strafford. An Historical Tragedy (1837) for Roma A. King's critical edition of Browning's works, he claimed that there was no known manuscript of Strafford. However, as early as 1954, Walter Federle had discussed the manuscripts of Strafford and A Blot in the 'Scutcheon in his Ph.D. thesis for Zürich University. In the years to come, Federle's close study of Browning's dramas was disregarded, and so were the manuscripts of Strafford, A Blot in the 'Scutcheon and Colombe's Birthday in the Lord Chamberlain's Office Records, now housed in the British Library.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 12 , Spring 1984 , pp. 163 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1. Federle, Walter, Robert Brownings dramatisches Experiment (Zurich: Pfaffikon, 1954).Google Scholar

2. British Library Add. Ms. 42941, fols. 807–71; Add. Ms. 42966, fols. 412–501; Add. Ms. 52939G, fols. 1–35. In this article, quotations from the Strafford manuscript have been normalized in part by putting speakers' names in centered small capitals and all stage directions in italic type.

3. Robert Browning to William Johnson Fox, May Day [1837], Lin coln's Inn Fields: “All my endeavours to procure a copy before this morning have been fruitless. I send the first book of the first bundle. Pray look over it – the alterations to-night will be considerable” (quoted in MrsOrr, Sutherland, Life and Letters of Robert Browning, 2nd ed. [London: Smith, Elder, 1891], p. 90).Google Scholar

4. The Diaries of William Charles Macready, 1833–1851, ed. Toynbee, William (London: Chapman and Hall, 1912), I, 381–89.Google Scholar

5. Strafford, in The Complete Works of Robert Browning, ed. King, Roma A. Jr. (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1970), II, 1–115, 339–60.Google Scholar

6. “n” refers to a note in the Ohio edition; “f” denotes that a cut goes beyond the line quoted.

7. Federle, , p. 107.Google Scholar

8. See Federle, , pp. 107–10Google Scholar: quotations 70 (v.ii. 38–39), 72 (I.ii.32), 75 (I.ii. 87–88n), 77 (III.iii. 94–97n), 79 (v.ii. 213–18, 220–21).

9. The shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1973), S.v. “haggard.”Google Scholar

10. Macready, , I, 389.Google Scholar

11. “Deceiving you – my friend, my playfellow.”

12. Macready, , I, 396.Google Scholar

13. Macready, , I, 383.Google Scholar

14. Macready, , I, 368.Google Scholar

15. Macready, , I, 385.Google Scholar

16. Macready, , I, 387.Google Scholar

17. Federle, , pp. 108–09.Google Scholar

18. Only after line 250 do we find the stage direction, “(The King recovers a little and sees Carlisle – she points to the King)” (fol. 869V).