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First edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s slender collection of seven poems on the cause of Italian independence, and one attacking slavery in the United States (‘A Curse for a Nation’), published a year before her death.

Barrett Browning was a staunch supporter of Italian independence, the subject of her 1851 Casa Guidi Windows. The Congress of the title had been planned for Paris in January 1860, but Austria withdrew on learning that Napoleon III meant to use the occasion to advocate limiting the Pope’s territory, and it was indefinitely postponed. She knew that she ran the risk – realised in hostile reviews – of being called unpatriotic for condemning England’s failure to intervene in the Italian cause, but she loved ‘truth and justice’ more than narrow nationalism. ‘Let us put away the little Pedlingtonism unworthy of a great nation, and too prevalent among us … I dream of the day when an English statesman shall arise with a heart too large for England …’ (preface).

Her ‘Curse for a Nation’ is a particularly powerful condemnation of slavery in America: ‘Because yourselves are standing straight | In the state | of Freedom’s foremost acolyte, | Yet keep calm footing all the time | On writhing bond-slaves, - for this crime | This is the curse. Write’. The advertisements promote Aurora Leigh and Barrett Browning’s collected poetry, as well as works by her husband, the poet Robert Browning.

Barnes A12; Wise 18.

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