The headnote gives the most accurate and detailed account yet presented of the poem's composition, publication, sources, and reception, making use of hitherto unpublished letters and textual material. It enables readers to understand the poem as an object of study and take pleasure in its intellectual and emotional energies.

John Woolford is Emeritus Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture at the University of Manchester and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Daniel Karlin is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Bristol, UK, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Joseph Phelan is Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at De Montfort University, UK.

Note by the General Editors; Acknowledgments; List of Illustrations; Abbreviations and References; The Ring and the Book; Headnote; Book I: The Ring and the Book; Book II: Half-Rome; Book III: Other Half-Rome; Book IV: Tertium Quid; Book V: Count Guido Franceschini; Book VI: Giuseppe Caponsacchi; Book VII: Pompilia; Book VIII: Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator; Book IX: Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus; Book X: The Pope; Book XI: Guido; Book XII: The Book and the Ring; Appendix A: Translations of the 'old yellow book'; Appendix B: Morte Dell' Uxoricida Guido Franceschini Decapitato [The Death of the Wife-Murderer Guido Franceschini, by Beheading] (the 'Secondary Source' of The Ring and the Book); Appendix C: The depositions of Francesca (Pompilia) and Caponsacchi in the 'old yellow book'; Appendix D: Authorial variants in the first American edition; Appendix E: Variants in Yale sheets; Appendix F: Selections from Browning's correspondence with Julia Wedgwood