Although the early part of Robert Browning's creative life was spent in comparative obscurity, he has come to be regarded as one of the most important poets of the Victorian period. His dramatic monologues and the psychohistorical epic The Ring and the Book (1868-1869), a novel in verse, have established him as a major figure in the history of English poetry. His claim to attention as a children's writer is more modest, resting as it does almost entirely on one poem, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," included almost as an afterthought in Bells and Pomegranites. No. III.--Dramatic Lyrics (1842) and evidently never highly regarded by its creator. Nevertheless, "The Pied Piper" moved quickly into the canon of children's literature, where it has remained ever since, receiving the dubious honor (shared by the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, 1911) of appearing almost as...