Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era. Born in County Durham as the eldest of twelve children, she began writing poetry at the age of eleven. Her early literary promise was documented extensively by her mother, leaving behind a vast collection of juvenilia. However, her youth was also marked by the onset of a lifelong illness at age fifteen, which caused severe head and spinal pain. To manage her symptoms, she began taking laudanum, a habit that likely contributed to her lifelong frail health.
Despite her physical limitations, Browning became a prolific writer. Her adult literary career took off in the late 1830s and early 1840s, supported by her cousin and patron John Kenyon. Her 1844 collection, Poems, brought her widespread acclaim and attracted the admiration of fellow poet Robert Browning. The two embarked on a secret courtship and married in 1846, defying her father's strict disapproval, which resulted in her disinheritance. The couple subsequently relocated to Italy, where they lived until her death in Florence in 1861.
Browning's poetry often engaged with major social issues of her day, including the abolition of slavery and child labor reform. Her work was highly influential, inspiring contemporaries such as Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson. Among her most celebrated works are Aurora Leigh, a novel in verse, and her famous love poem "How Do I Love Thee?" (Sonnet 43). Following a period of relative neglect, her literary reputation experienced a major resurgence in the late twentieth century through feminist scholarship.
