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.
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.
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
Anna Brownell Jameson
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.
169-70
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
Leaving Rome, MF
and her family stopped briefly in Rieti before settling in Florence at the end of September 1849, where they became acquainted with Robert
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
. Despite a great gulf...
Friends, Associates
Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP
knew personally and corresponded with many of the Victorian intelligentsia. In addition to her Langham Place associates already mentioned, her literary friends and acquaintances included Matilda Hays
, Harriet Martineau
, Anthony Trollope
,...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Rigby
ER
also knew Charles Dickens
, Thomas Carlyle
, and the Brownings
—she admired Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(whom she had met for half an hour) as so interesting a woman.
Rigby, Elizabeth. Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake. Editor Smith, Charles Eastlake, AMS Press.
2: 299
Lochhead, Marion C. Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake. John Murray.
89-100
Rigby, Elizabeth. “Preface and Memoirs”. Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake, edited by Charles Eastlake Smith, J. Murray, p. Various pages.
1: 225, 257
Friends, Associates
Caroline Clive
CC
remained a close friend of her early passion Catherine Gore
.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
She was also acquainted with Mary Russell Mitford
, whom she described as priggy,
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
CC
's friends and acquaintances were varying and numerous. In her youth the radical politician John Cartwright
was a neighbour. Her literary work as an adult led to the formation of a number of lasting...