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.
BBBD
's circle of friends at this period of her life, many of them entertained by herself and her husband at the Hoo but many whose relationship with her went back to long before her...
Friends, Associates
Isa Blagden
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
had a valuable friend in IB
, who nursed Elizabeth in Florence until her death on 29 June 1861, and continued afterwards to help in the upbringing of the Brownings' son, Pen
.
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.
Browning, Robert, and Isa Blagden. “Introduction”. Dearest Isa: Robert Browning’s Letters to Isabella Blagden, edited by Edward C. McAleer, Greenwood Press, p. xix - xxxiii.
xxiv
Friends, Associates
Jane Loudon
Catherine Crowe
, initially a friend of both JL
and her husband, stayed a while with Jane and her daughter in summer 1850, and shared her interest in spiritualism with Agnes. About four years later...
Friends, Associates
Michael Field
This first letter from Browning came in reply to one sent by Edith. The women called on him for the first time in June 1885. They visited the old poet
Field, Michael, and William Rothenstein. Works and Days. Editors Moore, Thomas Sturge and D. C. Sturge Moore, J. Murray.
His international travel and family ties to England's literary scene ensured him a wide social circle. He knew Charles Dickens
, John Forster
, and Frances Mary Peard
. While living in Florence, he became...
While visiting Italy, JWM
stayed with Robert
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
at Casa Guidi. (Years later they had an unpleasant public debate over Italian politics.) She met Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
in Rome, beginning...
Friends, Associates
Fanny Kemble
During an earlier visit to Italy in the summer of 1853, FK
's social circle had included Robert
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
, and her former acquaintance Harriet Hosmer
. She met the young Anne Thackeray
in Rome.
Clinton, Catherine. Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars. Simon and Schuster.
156
Marshall, Dorothy. Fanny Kemble. Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
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.
Meyers, Terry L. “Swinburne Reshapes His Grand Passion: A Version by ’Ashford Owen’”. Victorian Poetry, Vol.
31
, No. 1, West Virginia University, pp. 111-15.
111
Friends, Associates
Margaret Oliphant
While in Rome, MO
met Robert
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
.
Williams, Merryn. Margaret Oliphant: A Critical Biography. St Martin’s Press.
31
Friends, Associates
A. Mary F. Robinson
Her parents, who were the friends of many literary and artistic people, introduced her to an impressive social circle. Robert
and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
, William Michael Rossetti
, Thomas Hardy
, Walter Pater
,...
Friends, Associates
Edward FitzGerald
Despite a somewhat reclusive life both before and after his separation from his wife within a year of their marriage, he was well connected with the Victorian literary scene, and expressed strong opinions on women...
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...