The Ring and the Book

<p>If 'Sordello' is a book-length poem then 'The Ring and the Book'-in its day regarded as Browning's greatest achievement but today seemingly out of fashion-is something different. It is in fact a great novel but one presented in blank verse almost 21000 lines of it and in twelve books each representing a different view of the action (a court case involving adultery and murder) by one of the protagonists. Why it has been called an epic poem is a puzzle; it is epic only in length; it is a poem only because it is in verse. Pushkin's 'Yevgeny Onegin' is everywhere regarded as a novel although it is in verse. 'The Ring and the Book' is the greatest of all English verse novels; it is one of the great English novels of the 19th century; it is a remarkably modern novel in terms of narrative technique; it is by any standards a great work of English Literature. It is offered by Shearsman in the author's bicentenary year as it simply should not be out of print....</p>