“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” With these words, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has come down to us as a romantic heroine, a recluse controlled by a domineering father and often overshadowed by her husband, Robert Browning. But she defied cultural constraints—a modern figure whose life is a study in self-invention.
Born in 1806 when women were denied property, a university education, or the vote, Barrett Browning seized control of her private income, overcame long-term illness, eloped to revolutionary Italy with Browning, and achieved lasting literary fame. A feminist icon, political activist, and international literary superstar, she inspired writers from Emily Dickinson to George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf.
Join acclaimed writer and poet Fiona Sampson for a nuanced, comprehensive portrait of Britain’s most famous female poet, a woman who invented herself and defied her times.
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