Complete Works of Robert Browning, Volume XVII

With this seventeenth and final volume, The Complete Works of Robert Browning concludes the major phase of a great scholarly project: the accurate preservation and transmission of the poet's works for future generations of readers. Volume XVII begins with Browning's last collection of poems, Asolando: Fancies and Facts, published on the day of the poet's death, 12 December 1889. Wonderful in its diversity and intensity, Asolando contains lyrics of startling emotion, autobiographical narratives, and a few of the dramatic monologues for which Browning had become famed. Also in this final volume are ninety-nine fugitive pieces, either unpublished or uncollected during the poet's lifetime. Ranging from experimental poems of Browning's youth to Greek translations to joking couplets and witty ephemera, these works illustrate the endless variety of the poet's talent. Finally, Volume XVII includes "Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford," a biographical essay that Browning coauthored with John Forster in 1836. The historical research done for this work formed a basis for Strafford, a play Browning completed the following year. Comprehensive explanatory notes for the works in this volume are provided, as is a title index to all seventeen volumes of The Complete Works.