Elizabeth Barrett Browning
One of the most well respected female poets that lived during the Victorian Era was none other than Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Elizabeth was born in Ledbury, England in March 1806 and lived until June 29th 1861.
Elizabeth Browning was brought into the world into a wealthy family. Her father had amassed a large fortune thanks to the sugar plantations in Jamaica. Edward Barrett was actually born in Jamaica and their family had been associated with the islands through several generations. It was not until middle childhood that Elizabeth’s father would move to England where he would marry Mary Graham-Clarke and have 12 children of which Elizabeth was the oldest.
During her early life Elizabeth had to deal with a spout of tuberculosis, this would not stop her from writing and she wrote her first poem when she was only six years old. Her first lengthy poem as well as first published one was the Battle of Marathon which she wrote when she was only 14 years old thanks to her father paying for the publishing costs.
By 1826, Elizabeth was able to publish her first book of poems in which she titled, An Essay on Mind and Other Poems which attracted the attention of two Greek scholars. She made acquaintances with these two scholars, Hugh Stuart Boyd and Uvedale Price throughout her life. In 1833 out of a request by Hugh, Elizabeth translated Prometheus Bound which was a piece originally written by Aeschylus.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was also a big supporter of the abolition of slavery and for that reason she published a book in 1849 entitled The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point. Unfortunately, her father, who had made his fortune with sugar plantations that used slaves did not take kindly to her beliefs and moved the family to London.
The move to London only inspired Elizabeth to keep writing more works of great Victorian Era literature and soon afterwards she was able to publish a number of books like The Romaunt of Margaret, The Poet's Vow, The Romaunt of the Page as well as The Seraphim and Other Poems of which was published in 1838.
Her brother Edward would die in 1840 from a sailing accident and that catastrophic event would lead Elizabeth into writing The Cry of the Children in 1843. Eventually, in 1844 she would release a two volume book of poems which included some of her most famous works.
Elizabeth married Robert Browning, another Victorian Era novelist in secret back in 1845 where they then eloped and moved to Italy which remained her home until her death. At the time of their marriage, Elizabeth was not in the best medical condition, but due to the happiness of her marriage, she soon made a full recovery and gave birth to her first son at the age of 43.
She continued to write in Florence, Italy, her home which she and Robert called Casa Guidi until late 1860 when her health started to weaken and continued in a downward spiral until her death on June 29th 1861.
Original Authors: Globel Team (Nick)
Edit Update Authors: M.A.Harris
Updated On: 23/07/2008
