Browning Family

The eldest of twelve children, Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was born in 1806 to Edward Moulton-Barrett and his wife in Durham, England. The family's considerable wealth came largely from a Jamaican sugar plantation and in 1809 the family acquired a 500-acre estate near the Malvern Hills. Elizabeth received an excellent education at home, studying Greek and Latin as well as modern languages, read widely, and participated in family theatrical productions. Though she lead a generally healthy childhood, the family doctor began prescribing opium for a nervous complaint around 1821; the death of her mother in 1828 seemed to aggravate that condition.

Forced to sell the estate due to severe financial losses in the early 1830s, Barrett's father resettled his family in London and in 1838 Elizabeth's first volume of poetry, The Seraphim and Other Poems appeared, published under her real name. The same year, Barrett's declining health led her to move to Torquay, along with her younger brother Edward. The coastal town, rather than providing relief for her nerves, left her devastated when Edward drowned there later the same year. She returned home to her family and remained in near seclusion for the next five years.

Despite her social reclusiveness, Barrett continued to write, though against the advice of her doctors, and in 1844 she produced the volume Poems. Received with critical acclaim, Poems made her one of the most popular poets of the time and brought her to the attention of Robert Browning, a fellow writer. They first met in 1845 and over the next two years they corresponded, Browning declaring his love and Barrett expressing her doubts in the form of sonnets. These sonnets were later published under the title Sonnets from the Portuguese, Browning's pet name for her. In August, 1846, Robert and Elizabeth eloped to Italy, though being proper Victorians, they had been privately married the previous week. Barrett's father disinherited her, but since she had inherited money from a relative, this did not prove to be a hardship and the couple remained in Italy for the next 15 years. Their son Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning was born in 1849.

Barrett took an active interest in social injustice during her fifteen years in Italy. She wrote poems in protest over slavery, child labor, oppression of the Italians by the Austrians, and restrictions placed on women. Works created during this time include Casa Guidi Windows (1851), Poems before Congress (1860), and Aurora Leigh (1857).

It is unclear what illness Barrett suffered from, but she became increasingly addicted to the opium which doctors continued to prescribe for her. Though the Italian climate agreed with her, by 1861 she had deteriorated too far for medical help. She died in her husband's arms on June 29, 1861.

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, London, the first child of Robert and Sarah Anna Browning. His mother was a fervent Evangelical and an accomplished pianist. Mr. Browning had angered his own father and forgone a fortune: the poet's grandfather had sent his son to oversee a West Indies sugar plantation, but the young man had found the institution of slavery so abhorrent that he gave up his prospects and returned home, to become a clerk in the Bank of England. He was an exceedingly well-read man who could recreate the siege of Troy with the household chairs and tables for the benefit of his inquisitive son.

Most of Browning's education came at home. He was an extremely bright child and a voracious reader, and learned Latin, Greek, French, and Italian by the time he was fourteen. He attended the University of London in 1828, but left in discontent to pursue his own reading at his own pace. This somewhat idiosyncratic but extensive education has led to difficulties for his readers: he did not always realize how obscure his references and allusions were.

In the 1830s he met the actor William Macready and tried several times to write verse drama for the stage. At about the same time he began to discover that his real talents lay in the dramatic monologue. The reviews of Paracelsus (1835) had been mostly encouraging, but the difficulty and obscurity of his long poem Sordello (1840) turned the critics against him, and for many years they continued to complain of obscureness even in his shorter, more accessible lyrics.

In 1845 he read Elizabeth Barrett's Poems and arranged to meet her. Although she was an invalid and six years his elder, the two married in September 1846 and a few days later eloped to Italy, where they lived until her death in 1861. The years in Florence were among the happiest for both of them. Her love for him was demonstrated in the Sonnets from the Portuguese, and to her he dedicated Men and Women, which contains his best poetry. Public sympathy for him after her death surely helped the critical reception of his Collected Poems (1862) and Dramatis Personae (1863). The Ring and the Book (1868-9), based on an old yellow book which told of a Roman murder and trial, finally won him considerable popularity. From then on Browning and Tennyson were mentioned together as the foremost poets of the age. He lived and wrote actively for another twenty years, and his influence continued to grow, finally leading to the founding of the Browning Society in 1881. He died in 1889, on the same day that his final volume of verse, Asolando, was published. He is buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.

From the guide to the Browning Family Collection TXRC99-A28., 1816-1935, (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin)