Two-Way Mirror by Fiona Sampson (jenna bush book club txt) 📗

‘Poet-Laureat…’ Edward B MB to EBB 24 April 1814, #11; EBB, ‘Glimpses’, pp. 348–56.

p. 23

EBB to E B MB 27 April 1814, #12; EBB to Mary MB 1 May 1814 #13; EBB to Henrietta MB 14 May 1814, #14; EBB to E B MB 28 May 1814, #15.

EBB, ‘Glimpses’, p. 350.

EBB, ‘My Own Character’, pp. 347–48.

p. 24

‘Ardent…’ EBB, ‘My Character and Bro’s Compared’ in Kelley and Hudson, eds, The Brownings’ Correspondence vol. 1, pp. 357–58. Precociously, Ba understands that even her desire to be truthful about herself is vanity. ‘Theology… more mad!’ EBB, ‘Glimpses’ p. 353. Artaud SD283. ‘At eleven…’ EBB, ‘Glimpses’, p. 351.

The Latin tutor is an Irishman called Daniel McSwiney. Letter, in my translation, is EBB to Samuel Moulton-Barrett c.July 1817, #50.

EBB, ‘To Summer’, 4 May 1819.

p. 25

Such stays briefly show promise of becoming a pattern in 1819, when they summer at Worthing: but then abruptly stop. From the age of four Arabella will spend nearly three years away at Ramsgate and Worthing, returning to Hope End in 1820.

‘I don’t like dancing…’ in my translation, EBB to Mme Gordin c.July 1817, #47. ‘House under the sideboard…’ EBB to RB 15 January 1846, #2175.

‘Steady indignation…’ EBB to Mary Russell Mitford 22 July 1842, #988.

‘One great misfortune…’ EBB ‘Untitled Essay’, p. 361.

Though of course we can’t rule dysphoria out, even as a phase, since there’s no definite statement to the contrary.

p. 26

‘I hate needlework…’ EBB, ‘My Own Character’, p. 347. ‘Admirer at thirteen…’ EBB to Mitford 28–29 March 1842, #931. ‘An old maid…’ Mary MB to EBB c.September 1821, #135. If spinsterhood means rigidity, femininity must indeed mean, for Ba’s Mama, flexibility.

‘Coterie…’ Artaud to Taylor SD283.

EBB, ‘Essay on Woman’, Ll. 33–34, Studies in Browning and His Circle vol. 12 (1984), pp. 11–12.

‘Your Lordship is the only instrument of the ceaseless shame which now pollutes your name.’ EBB to Lord Somers – draft c.September 1817, #51.

p. 27

Her first surviving poem, ‘On the Cruelty of Forcement to Man’, protests the Royal Navy’s press-ganging of sailors. In 1812 this practice is debated in Parliament and the press, and becomes a catalyst for war between Britain and the United States.

The MS in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library (Reconstruction D666), is probably misdated as 1814. However, press coverage of the issue in 1812 accords with EBB’s own version of herself as a poet from the age of six. EBB, ‘Glimpses’, p. 349.

‘One little city…’ Preface, The Battle of Marathon. ‘Doubt clouds…’ Marathon Bk I, Ll. 363–68.

p. 28

‘Dear Ba seemed so unhappy at our going that it inspired my idea that it would be a material improvement to her to do so, and she jumped into the carriage with us.’ Mary MB to Arabella Graham-Clarke 25 October 1815, SD236.

‘Thuillerie Gardens…’ EBB to Arabella Graham-Clarke 26 December 1815, #26. ‘In spite of the romantic prospects…’ EBB to E B MB c.November 1817, #53.

p. 29

‘The blood of the slave…’ EBB to RB 20 December 1845, #2144.

p. 30

George Goodin remembers his mixed-heritage illegitimate children in his will in much the same terms that white illegitimate children are customarily remembered. He leaves them the maximum amount allowed under racist laws of the time. Elissa is not free, and meaningful consent is lacking. Moreover, as she was herself of mixed heritage – she’s described as ‘mulatto’ – something similar must have happened to her mother, or grandmother. ‘To each of his quadroon children Goodin Barrett left “two thousand pounds Current money of Jamaica”, the maximum allowed to colored offspring by law.’ Jeannette Marks, The Family of the Barrett: A Colonial Romance (New York: Macmillan, 1938: p. 223). Elissa Peters receives an annuity, a house and three enslaved women as servants.

Cecilia A. Green, ‘Hierarchies of whiteness in the geographies of empire: Thomas Thistlewood and the Barretts of Jamaica’ in NWIG: New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids vol. 80, no. 1/2 (2006), pp. 5–43, 35.

UCL Legacies of British Slave-ownership https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146642461 [retrieved 11 August 2018].

p. 31

‘When we consider them…’ ‘An Impartial Review of New Publications’ in The London Magazine vol. 42 (September 1773), p. 456. Wheatley fell out of fashion and died in poverty, albeit a free woman, two decades before Ba’s birth. She would be republished in America in the 1830s by abolitionists. W. T. J. Gun, ed, Harrow School Register 1571–1800 (London, New York, Toronto: Longmans, 1934), p. 36.

RB, ‘Prefatory Note’, The Collected Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1887).

p. 32

E B MB seems to have lied about his age, since the Alumni Cantabrigiensis has him admitted as Fellow Commoner in October 1801 aged eighteen.

When Robert Moulton surrendered his claim on the estates to Philip Scarlett on 20 February 1806 he was forced to give Ba’s Uncle Sam more than £500; but Papa had to find £6,533/17/7½ to pay him off. R. A. Barrett, The Barretts of Jamaica, pp. 52–53.

The Epsom house had belonged to Charles Moulton’s father-in-law’s sister. Land Tax returns list him as occupant for this year only.

Vere Langford Oliver, ed, Caribbeana: being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies (London: Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1910). He is named as owner 1812–26 in Epsom and Ewell Explorer, http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/TheCedars.html [retrieved 30 July 2018]. According to R. A. Barrett, in The Barretts of Jamaica, Moulton bought the house from the family, and resold it back to them.

The History of Parliament http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/moulton-barrett-samuel-1787-1837 [retrieved 3 July 2018].

The London Chronicle for 1761 records the Truelove, belonging to ‘Moulton’, sailing from Madeira for Barbados on 4 April. A. Arnaiz-Villena, R. Reguera, A. Ferri, L. Barbolla, S. Abd-El-Fatah-Khalil, N. Bakhtiyarova, P. Millan, J. Moscoso, A. Mafalda, J. I. Serrano-Vela, ‘The peopling of Madeira archipelago (Portugal) according to HLA genes’ in International Journal of Immunogenetics vol. 36, no. 1 (1 Feb 2009), p. 9.

From 1768 the import of foreign-born slaves to Madeira was banned; but full emancipation was not achieved until 1858. Alberto Vieira, ‘Slavery in Madeira in the XV and XVII