Preface To The First Edition:  This book was written at the request of some of the members of the Browning Society, and was originally intended to be a primer.

If we were called upon to describe Mr. Browning's poetic genius in one phrase, we should say it consisted of an almost unlimited power of imagination exerted upon real things;  but we should have to explain that with Mr. Browning the real includes everything which a  human can think or feel, and that he is realistic only in the sense of being never visionary;  he never deals with those vague and incoherent fancies, so attractive to some minds, which we speak of as coming only from the poet's brain.