Browning's Italy: A Study of Italian Life and Art in Browning

New York: The Baker & Taylor Company, 1907. 8vo.  210 x 135 mm., [8 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches].  [16], 382 pp.  Illustrated with frontispiece and 20 photographic reproductions.  Bound in publisher's green cloth, with color printed pastoral scene pasted to the upper board, gilt title on spine; binding showing light wear to tips and spine, some soiling to the cloth, spine faded with some discoloration.  With faults a nice copy.

First edition.   A study of the Brownings' travels to Italy in 1838, 1844,  and there nine year stay in country from 1846 and 1855 and the influence  these experiences had on their writing.  Included are detail on the people and places they visited and the impact of political and societal changes that were taking place in Italy during the middle years of the century.  Clarke's work is considered a significant contribuiton to of the poetry and prose of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Helen Archibald Clarke (1860-1926) was the editor of the works of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, and author of critical biographies of Hawthorne and Longfellow.  She was also the founder of the journal Poet Lore with Charlotte Porter.  Her father was a professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania and through his influence Charlotte was able to study for two years at Penn, then still a male only institution, and she earned a certificate in music in 1883.