The Ring and the Book - Softcover

Browning, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848612532 ISBN 13: 9781848612532

Publisher: Shearsman Books, 2012

Synopsis

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 21,000 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 standard,s 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....

About this title

From the Publisher:

ISFN's Classics Again series hopes to bring great books that have been undeservedly forgotten back into the spotlight. We are delighted to have the opportunity to present you with a work that might have otherwise eluded your notice.

From the Back Cover:

In June, 1860, Browning purchased an “old yellow book” from a bookstall in Florence. The book contained legal briefs, pamphlets, and letters relating to a case that had been tried in 1698 involving a child bride, a disguised priest, a triple murder, four hangings and the beheading of a nobleman. Browning resolved to use it as the source for a poem. The result, The Ring and the Book, is certainly one of the most important long poems of the Victorian era and is arguably Browning’s greatest work.

Basing their edition on the 1888–89 version of the poem, Altick and Collins include the last corrections Browning intended before his death. In addition to a substantial introduction, this Broadview Literary Texts edition also includes selections from Browning’s correspondence, and contemporary reviews and reactions to the work.

About this edition

• Publisher: Shearsman Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1848612532
• ISBN 13: 9781848612532
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 618