Browne or Brown [1]. Address: Paris. Not identified. The Office Book records payment for the first item ["Two French Farmers" XI, 105-108. March 3, 1855] as made to Browne by "Cheque to Paris"; for the second ["Much Ado about Nothing" XII, 422-427. Dec. 1, 1855], it gives the writer as "Brown (of Paris)" and records payment as made in cash. In his first contribution, which seems to be factual. the writer tells of living for a time on a farm in the outskirts of Paris, "for the sake of experience"; he takes "a lively interest in ... agricultural affairs." The interest in farming suggests that he may be Browne of the Boulogne address. 

      The second item is a story, told in first person, of a young Englishman who goes to Paris, becomes foreman of a manufactory, and after some slight complications marries the daughter of a retired butcher. Dickens wrote to Wills from Paris, Nov. 15, 1855: "I return the No. – a most alarmingly shy one, and really requiring something better to bring it up at last than that Much Ado About Nothing. Pray overhaul your stock, and see if you can't find something better than that at any rate." "Much Ado" appeared not as last item in the number, but as fourth item.

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.