Poet's loveless lyrical revealed

A RARE insight into a doomed love affair between Robert Browning and a Victorian intellectual is revealed in a forgotten literary archive which has lain unopened for four decades.

Correspondence between the 19th-century poet and Julia Wedgwood is expected to fetch up to 100,000 when the literary memorabilia of the late Halsted vander Poel is auctioned later this year.

The letters show how the romance was overshadowed by the writer’s devotion to his late wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. More poignantly, they offer an insight into the etiquette which governed romantic liaisons in Victorian society.

Tom Lamb, manuscripts specialist at Christie’s auction house in London, said Browning never hid the fact that his late wife still reigned his heart.

But he added: "There is no doubt that the strict moral values of the age contributed to the breakdown of his relationship with Julia. In the end, she called it off because her reputation was suffering."

Browning and his wife remain one of English literature’s great love affairs.

Elizabeth was all but held captive by her tyrannical father at the family home in London, until Browning eloped with her to Italy. But she died in 1861 and Browning returned to England with their son, Pen.

On his return he began a relationship with the intellectual Miss Wedgwood, grand-daughter of potter Josiah Wedgwood, and niece of Charles Darwin.

The batch of 73 letters to be sold by Christie’s, charts their romance between 1863 and 1870.

"You know that I feel for you from my heart," writes Browning in June 1864. "Three years ago, in this very week, I lost my own soul’s companion ... Be assured that your friendship has always been precious to me, and that while I live it will be the most precious ..."

His new love replied: "Your letter has been a gleam in the darkness of my mind today."

But by November 1864 it seems Miss Wedgwood’s affections are not fully reciprocated.

She writes: "You know that all that is exceptional in our intercourse is my doing, not yours, that your part has merely been one of response, and that if there was any indiscretion, in taking up a position so liable to misconception, that was wholly on my side."

More poignant are her words on the approbation she faced from her strait-laced society.

She writes: "There are those very near to me who think there was grave indiscretion in what I did, and who have put it before me in a way that whether or not it convinces my judgment, unquestionably affects my will.

"You have said you leave the proprieties in my hands. I do not know, even if I saw clearly their opposition to our meeting, if they alone would be strong enough to deprive me of what I must give up, but they represent the feelings of those whose prejudices cannot be ignored by me. Dear friend, be patient with me."

However, by March 1865 Miss Wedgwood chastises herself for her public indiscretions: "I have been intending to write to you for several days, dear friend, to say - what I do not say willingly - that it would be better that we did not meet again just now, at least that you did not come here. I have reason to know that my pleasure in your company has had an interpretation put upon it that I ought not to allow.

"I have no doubt that the fault has been mine, in cautiously allowing it to be known that I made an object of your visits. You will feel at once that it is a mistake which must be set right by deeds, not words."

But by 1870 it is clear that the late Elizabeth overshadowed their relationship. Miss Wedgwood tells Browning: "You owe us an adequate translation of what your wife was to you."

Browning’s response is plain: "Goodbye dear friend; it was very pleasant to hear your voice in the dark - though I see no face since years now."

Miss Wedgwood died in 1913. A small print run of the letters was published in the United States in 1937, under the title: "A Broken Friendship: Robert Browning and Julia Wedgwood."

The letters were bought by Mr vander Poel in 1938 for his literary archive. The collection has lain untouched in storage since 1960, ensuring that the affair between Browning and Miss Wedgwood was all but forgotten.

Following Mr vander Poel’s death last year, his archive is to be sold at Christie’s in London on 3 March.

Mr Lamb commented: "These letters reveal for the first time the sad story of a friendship between two great intellectuals of the Victorian age, broken by gossip and moral strictures.

"It may have saved Browning’s life after the death of his wife - but ultimately caused pain and suffering."