This book was written at the request of some of the members of the
Browning Society, and was originally intended to be a primer. It bears
the marks of this intention in its general scheme, and in the almost
abrupt brevity which the desired limits of space seemed to impose on its
earlier part. But I felt from the first that the spirit of Mr.
Browning's work could neither be compressed within the limits, nor
adapted to the uses, of a primer, as generally understood; and the book
has naturally shaped itself into a kind of descriptive Index, based
partly on the historical order and partly or the natural classification
of the various poems. No other plan suggested itself, at the time, for
bringing the whole series of these poems at once under the reader's eye:
since a description which throughout followed the historical order would
have involved both lengthiness and repetition; while, as I have tried to
show, there exists no scheme of natural classification into which the
whole series could have been forced. I realize, only now that it is too
late, that the arrangement is clumsy and confusing: or at least has
become so by the manner in which I have carried it out; and that even if
it justify itself to the mind of my readers, it can never be helpful or
attractive to their eye, which had the first right to be considered.
That I should have failed in a first attempt, however earnest, to meet
the difficulties of such a task, is so natural as to be almost beyond
regret, where my credit only is concerned; but I shall be very sorry if
this result of my inexperience detracts from any usefulness which the
Handbook might otherwise possess as a guide to Mr. Browning's works. I
note also, and with real vexation, some blunders of a more mechanical
kind, which I might have been expected to avoid.
I have been indebted for valuable advice to Mr. Furnivall; and for
fruitful suggestion to Mr. Nettleship, whose proposed scheme of
classification I have in some degree followed.