Robert Browning

This volume in the 21st-Century Oxford Authors series offers students and readers a comprehensive selection of the work of Robert Browning (1812-1889). Accompanied by full scholarly apparatus this is the first one-volume fully annotated edition of Browning's poetry. It presents work written across the breadth of his career from the very first poem he published <em>Pauline</em> to <em>Asolando</em> the volume that was published on the day that he died. <p/>The text chosen is wherever possible the text of the poem as it was first published by Browning himself and as a consequence the volume also constitutes a kind of biography that enables students to understand Browning's development over the course of his life. The edition reveals a poet who began as a bold experimentalist and who continued to experiment throughout a writing career of more than fifty years. Browning is best known for his dramatic monologues and the dramatic monologues are fully represented in this volume but he was also a narrative poet a poet of philosophical reflection and a poet who fashioned an extraordinary variety of lyric measures. This volume reveals Browning as a far more versatile poet than he is often taken to be. There are two important prose items an essay on Shelley and a letter to Ruskin which clarify Browning's intellectual stance. The Notes include brief headnotes to each poem followed by detailed annotation and they assist the reader in developing a full understanding of these masterful poems. <p/>Explanatory notes and commentary are included to enhance the study understanding and enjoyment of these works and the edition includes an Introduction to the life and works of Browning and a Chronology.<br>