Beschreibung:

BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett. Autograph manuscript signed ("Elizabeth Barrett Browning"), a fair copy of her verses "Little Mattie" ("Dead! Thirteen a month ago! Short and narrow her Life's walk..."), n.d. [ca.1861]. 3 pages, 8vo, 84 lines in seven stanzas, written in ink on the rectos of three sheets laid paper, inserted in protective folder of red watered red silk, brown morocco gilt pull-off case (rubbed). Coley & Kelley, The Browning Collections D48l. At least four different manuscripts of these heartfelt verses memorializing a 13-year-old child are extant. A manuscript draft of two stanzas is in the Armstrong Browning collection at Baylor University; a three-page fair copy, with revisions, was given by Robert Browning in 1882 to Wellesley College, another fair copy with revisions, sold in the 1913 Browning sales, is presently at Yale University Library. The poem was first published in the Cornhill Magazine in June 1861. See Kelley and Coley D479-482. Provenance: Anonymous owner (sale, Anderson Galleries, 1 December 1908, lot 135) -- George A. Zabriskie (sale, Parke-Bernet, 13 October 1954, lot 6).