Description
First edition published by Smith, Elder and Co., London, in 1868–1869. Complete in four volumes.
A very good set in the publisher’s original green cloth, with gilt lettering to the spines and decorative borders to the boards. Carter’s ‘B’ binding, with Roman numeral volume numbers throughout. Some darkening to the spines, with light rubbing, creasing and minor fraying at the ends. Foxing to the endpapers and preliminary leaves, with occasional spotting elsewhere and small chips to a few leaves. The text generally clean and the bindings firm.
Browning’s great narrative poem, based on a seventeenth-century Roman murder trial. Its sequence of dramatic monologues presents competing accounts of the same events, exploring the shifting boundaries between truth, self-interest and justice.
