Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
-
Standard Name: Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Birth Name: Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett
Nickname: Ba
Pseudonym: EBB
Married Name: Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Browning
Used Form: E. B. Barrett
Used Form: Elizabeth B. Barrett
Used Form: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
Used Form: E.B.B.
Used Form: E. B. B.
EBB
was recognized in her lifetime as one of the most important poets of mid-Victorian Britain. She wrote a significant corpus of poetry which ranges from the lyric through the closet drama or dramatic lyric and the dramatic monologue to the epic, as well as letters and criticism. For much of the twentieth century, interest in her focused on her romantic life-story, her letters, and Sonnets from the Portuguese. Late in the century, critical interest in her epic female künstlerroman or verse novel Aurora Leigh and her other political poetry—in which she took up the causes of working-class children, the abolition of slavery, women's issues, and the Italian Risorgimento—revived. She is again considered one of the leading and most influential voices of her day.
HBS
is remembered above all as having contributed substantially with Uncle Tom's Cabin to the build-up of anti-slavery feeling in the North before the Civil War. The sense of her influence is encapsulated in the...
Health
Adelaide Procter
AP
's health was poor from an early age. A letter from William Thackeray
describes her at the age of fourteen as vomiting basins of blood. She went to Italy for a year in 1853-54...
Friends, Associates
Mary Russell Mitford
MRM
first met the young Elizabeth Barrett (later Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
, in London, though Barrett's cousin John Kenyon
.
Mitford, Mary Russell. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by Herself in Letters To Her Friends. Editor L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, Harper and Brothers.
2: 174
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research.
116: 196
Friends, Associates
Florence Nightingale
Around this time FN
became acquainted with other literary women as well. In July 1852 George Eliot
, who had become her correspondent, remarked in another letter that there is a loftiness of mind about...
Friends, Associates
Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ
was introduced to Elizabeth Barrett
by John Kenyon
.
Thomas, Clara. Love and Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson. University of Toronto Press.
ABJ
and her niece Gerardine
departed for Paris, where they encountered the BrowningsRobert Browning
, who had just eloped, and all four travelled together to Pisa.
Thomas, Clara. Love and Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson. University of Toronto Press.
HM
's social circle vastly expanded at this time until she knew virtually all the prominent people, particularly the political men, of her day. As she recorded in her Autobiography, however, she refused to...
Friends, Associates
Henrietta Euphemia Tindal
Friends with whom she maintained contact by correspondence included her neighbour Mary Russell Mitford
, who commented to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
that HET
had been wrong in her theory about the authorship of Jane Eyre...
Friends, Associates
Hans Christian Andersen
HCA
dedicated his book A Poet's Day Dreams to Charles Dickens
, whom he visited in 1857. He also, while visiting England, stayed with William
and Mary Howitt
at The Elms, Lower Clapton. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Somerville, Mary. Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville. Editor Somerville, Martha, Roberts Brothers.
226
Friends, Associates
George Sand
She was frequently sought out by British writers during these years, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning
and Charles Dickens. Browning addressed two sonnets to Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man, / Self-called George Sand,
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. The Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Editors Clarke, Helen A. and Charlotte Porter, AMS Press.
2: 239
Friends, Associates
Mary Howitt
MH
's friendship with Elizabeth Barrett Browning
came to an end; her biography blames this on the mutual coldness of their respective husbands.
Robert Browning
was alienated on hearing stories that William took surreptitious notes...