About Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806 – 1861)

Browning was born near Durham, England and was an eldest child of a large family. Like the poet Emily Dickinson, she spent most of her childhood in her family home due to chronic health problem. Because of this, she was educated at home. Her close acquaintance was a blind scholar who is her neighbor.

Although her father (a plantation owner) kept a strict watch over his children, she managed to start a corresponding with the poet Robert Browning. Starting on literary matters, the relationships changed into an intimate one.

Because her father forbids any of his children from getting married, Browning eloped to Italy, got married and gave birth to a son.

In her first year of marriage she published her most famous work - Sonnets from the Portuguese in the guise of a translation of Portuguese love poems. Critics believed she did this to hide their personal revelations.

She was an already a famous poet when she met her husband to be (Robert Browning). Although she did not win the Poet Laureate post in 1850, she was considered to be one of the most important and respected poet in the Victorian era.

She is also considered by many critics to be the greatest of English poetesses.

Browning lived in Florence until her death.