It is by "Francesca da Rimini" that Boker is best remembered. In a
letter to Stoddard, March 3, 1853, he writes:

You will laugh at this, but the thing is so. "Francesca da
Rimini" is the title. Of course you know the story,--everyone
does; but you nor any one else, do not know it as I have
treated it. I have great faith in the successful issue of this
new attempt. I think all day, and write all night. This is one
of my peculiarities, by the bye: a subject seizes me soul and
body, which accounts for the rapidity of my execution. My muse
resembles a whirlwind: she catches me up, hurries me along,
and drops me all breathless at the end of her career.

And soon this was followed by the letter so often quoted, showing the
white-heat of his enthusiasm:

Now that "Francesca da Rimini" is done,--all but the
polishing,--I have time to look around and see how I have
been neglecting my friends during my state of "possession."
Of course you wish to know my opinion of the bantling; I
shall suppose you do, at all events. Well, then, I am better
satisfied with "Francesca da Rimini" than with any of my
previous plays. It is impossible for me to say what you, or
the world, will say of it; but if it do not please you both,
I do not know what I am about. The play is more dramatic than
former ones, fiercer in its display of intense passions, and,
so far as mere poetry goes, not inferior, if not superior, to
any of them. In this play I have dared more, risked more, than
I ever had courage to do before. _Ergo_, if it be not a great
triumph, it will certainly be a great failure. I doubt whether