Browning's great achievement, The Ring and the Book (published complete, Volume III), marked the end of a phase in his development. With the Dramatis Personae (Volume II) it occupied the four years which followed the death of his greatly loved Wife, a time of readjustment to life and the world. Browning's gifts continued to flower with the ripening years, and two decades of 'vigorous creative life, a time of huge output .. Of much work that was equal to his best, reflecting new and maturing response to experience' lay ahead.