Publication of A Drama of Exile in America

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's first publication of A Drama of Exile was by an American press: United States Magazine and Democratic Review. A Drama of Exile was the first poem in her collection of poetry that was published in two installments in America (July and August 1844). The collection was entitled A Drama of Exile: And Other Poems, further illustrating her statement in the Preface that it was "the longest and most important work (to me!) which I ever trusted into the current publication." Fun fact: Edgar Allan Poe was one of her biggest fans in America.

The attached picture is from the preface of the George G. Harrap & Co. 1900 edition of A Drama of Exile held in the Armstrong Browning Library's rare item archives.

The First Trial in the Scottsboro Case

Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems, two of nine black young men accussed of the assualt and rape of Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, are convicted and sentenced to death in the first trial of The Scottsboro Case. One notable comparison between this case and the fictional trial of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird is the fact that neither trial provided medical evidence to prove a rape occured. In Lee's novel, Bob Ewell deliberately avoids medical examination. In the Scottsboro Case, doctors concluded no rape had taken place, but the youths were convicted anyway. Likewise, in both cases the community was reluctant to provide lawyers for the defendants. A year later, this ruling will be upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court, but overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ralph Elliott Publishes Essay on Green Chapel Location

On the 21st of May, 1958, medievalist Ralph Elliott published his essay, "Sir Gawain in Staffordshire: A Detective Essay in Literary Geography," in the London Times. It was the first attempt by a literary scholar to situate locations from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in real-world geography.  He would later follow up this article with a book, The Gawain Country: Essays on the Topography of Middle English Alliterative Poetry, in 1984 and another essay, "Holes and Caves in the Gawain Country," in 1988. Although many scholars have since published their own theories surrounding the poem's geography, it nonetheless remains the seminal work on the topic, setting the precedent for all future scholarship.