Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett was born on 6 March 1806, in Coxhoe Hall, County Durham, the eldest of 12 children. The family's wealth was derived from sugar plantations manned by slaves in Jamaica, enabling them to also purchase a 500-acre estate in Herefordshire. This wealth allowed her to publish poems from an early age. However, by age 20, the family's fortunes were in decline, though they were never below comfortable, after losing a lawsuit over their plantations.
Shortly thereafter, Elizabeth became afflicted with an unknown disease and became addicted to morphine. Despite this, she continued to write and became increasingly popular both in England and the United States. Her poems against slavery chronicled her abhorrence of the basis of the family wealth. In 1844 she was introduced to the younger Robert Browning, who was a great admirer of her work and began a secret courtship and thence to marriage. To him she wrote and dedicated one of her greatest works, Sonnets from the Portuguese, and they went to live in Italy in 1846. Although by now an invalid, she seemed insecure of the love of the vigorous Robert, but continued to write and publish poetry as diverse as love sonnets and political pieces before succumbing to death in 1861. Our reader is Ghizela Rowe.
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"I must say that I was slow to warm up to the poems and don't think I would have liked them as well without having read the Introduction first. Lovely, very personal. You can really see the path of the love affair between EBB and Robert Browning. " — Lisa (4 out of 5 stars)
"I must say that I was slow to warm up to the poems and don't think I would have liked them as well without having read the Introduction first. Lovely, very personal. You can really see the path of the love affair between EBB and Robert Browning. "
" These poems are directed from one lover to another with such intensity that reading them by yourself can make you feel kind of lonely. "
" Certainly interesting, but this little book of poems did not grip me as much as I had expected. Maybe I have become too accustomed to reading modern poetry. The style and writing felt heavy to me. "
" Ugh, books of sonnets are pretty hard to take, personally. Impressive and all, but...c'mon. "
" Just could not get into these. Still gave it 3 stars because I am sure if someone was really into poetry they would love this, but they just didn't do it for me "
" Well, it's EBB - how bad could it be?? "
" Memories of love coming alive. I love you Marlene, even inside all the madness. "
" found a little gem of a book (hard cover with gold lettering, broken spine :( and silhouettes in Victorian style) at a second hand shop. Very sappy poetry, but sometimes I like it that way. :D "
" This book started my love for poetry. "
" I've always held to the idea that someone can fall in love by reading someone else's writings. This must have been exactly what happened to Robert Browning, because Elizabeth's poetry about him is beautiful. "
" only, i'm not reading this one. no letters. only poems. but goodreads didn't pop that one up when i entered the title. apparently all but one of their love letters remains...kind of amazing. "
" Elizabeth Barrett Browning is my homegirl. "
" Some of these make me say, "ahh". And some are just odd. Think I'm rusty at old-timey lit. "
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) is generally considered the greatest of English poetesses. She was well educated for a woman of her time at home, being confined to bed by a lung complaint, possibly tuberculosis. The appearance of her Poems in 1844 attracted the attention of Robert Browning, who courted her in secret before eloping with her to Italy. There Elizabeth’s health improved and she threw herself into politics, becoming a pioneer of early liberal movements.
Ghizela Rowe has worked in broadcast television for thirty years on a broad range of programming. Her specialization is in music. She helps run the Copyright Group, an extensive collection of master recording rights, and has lent her voice to many audiobooks, including The Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Gaskell: The Short Stories, and The Romantics: An Introduction.
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