This is the first appearance in print of the Sonnets from the Portuguese which were not published until 1850, when they were issued under the title Sonnets from the Portuguese, as a part of the Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Mr. Browning told the story of the Portuguese Sonnets to Mr. Edmund Gosse, who printed the account in Critical Kit-Kats, 1896:
"The Sonnets were intended for her husband's eyes alone; in the first instance, not even for his ... Fortunately for all those who love true poetry, Mr. Browning judged rightly of the obligation laid upon him by the possession of these poems. 'I dared not,' he said, 'reserve to myself the finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare's.' Accordingly he persuaded his wife to commit the printing of them to her friend Miss Mitford; and in the course of the year they appeared in a slender volume entitled 'Sonnets, by E. B. B.,' with the imprint 'Reading, 1847,' and marked 'Not for publication.'"
Duodecimo.
Collation: 47 pp.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
(1819-1891)
86. Melibœus-Hipponax. | The | Biglow Papers, | Edited, | With An Introduction, Notes, Glossary, | And Copious Index, | By | Homer Wilbur, A.M., | [Three lines] [Quotations] Cambridge: | Published By George Nichols. | 1848.
Writing to Thomas Hughes on September 13, 1859, Lowell says: "I tried my first "Biglow Papers" in a newspaper, and found that it had a great run. So I wrote the others from time to time during the year which followed, always very rapidly, and sometimes (as "What Mr. Robinson thinks") at one sitting.