With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Sally Minogue Elizabeth Barrett Browning was such an acclaimed poet in her own lifetime that she was suggested as a candidate for the Poet Laureateship when Wordsworth died in 1850. Yet today we have only a limited knowledge of her considerable life's work as a poet, in part because of a lack of representative but accessible editions of her work. Readers will find here not only her well-known sonnet sequence of love poems, Sonnets From the Portuguese, but also lesser known sonnets, some in praise of the cross-dressing bohemian writer George Sand, others to contemporary poets and artists. Her religious and spiritual poetry echoes that of the Metaphysical poets. A different voice emerges in her social and political protest poems, such as `The Cry of the Children' and `The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point'. Her experimental ballads allowed her to develop a distinctive way of writing about women within an apparently conventional form. In the outstanding work of her maturity, Aurora Leigh, the woman's voice takes centre stage. This `novel-poem' is full of verve and interest, with a female poet-hero who casts a caustic eye on life and on her fellow men - and women. We all think we know the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning - the mysterious illness which enclosed her in her room, her over-loving but imperious father, and her romantic, secret marriage to the poet Robert Browning and their life together in Italy. But this comprehensive selection of her poetry tells the real story of her sustained creative life as a poet, which began with her childhood poetic ambitions and ended only with her death. All the major aspects of her poetry are represented in this accessible edition which is well-annotated and contextualised, with a wide-ranging introduction which covers Barrett Browning's poetic and intellectual life as well as her personal one. Recent critical re-readings, including major feminist reassessments, of her poetry are covered in the introduction, with helpful suggestions for further reading.

The text is accompanied by both explanatory annotations and textual notes. "Backgrounds and Contexts" includes thirty letters or letter excerpts by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning that trace Aurora Leigh s inception, evolution, and publication. Seven contemporary documents on the "woman question," prostitution, socialism, and poetic theory place the text historically. "Criticism" collects twenty-five assessments of Aurora Leigh from the period 1899 1993. A wide range of opinion is provided by George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Ellen Moers, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Angela Leighton, Deirdre David, Dorothy Mermin, and Margaret Reynolds, among others. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included."

Aurora Leigh (1856) is an epic poem by English Romantic poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Described by Browning as "a novel in verse," Aurora Leigh is primarily the story of its titular heroine, an intelligent woman and ambitious poet whose talent is matched only by her skill for self-doubt. Although it is narrated in the first person, the poem also concerns itself with the character Marian Erle, a woman rescued from a life on the streets by Aurora's cousin Romney, who loves both women in complex and varying ways. Recognized as one of the most important poems of the nineteenth century, Aurora Leigh is notable for its use of the epic form-traditionally masculine, and concerned with subjects such as war, history, and the gods-in order to tell a story centered on talented and uniquely independent women. Born in Florence to a Tuscan mother and English father, and encouraged from a young age to study the classics and learn Latin and Greek, Aurora Leigh develops not only the desire to become a famous poet, but the talent and intelligence to achieve her dream. What she has in ambition and skill, however, she lacks in confidence, and, after moving to England as a teenager, Aurora struggles to make a name for herself in the competitive literary environment of London. While in England, she meets her cousin Romney Leigh, a dedicated and idealistic social worker who dreams of using his inheritance and family estate-Leigh Hall-to alleviate the suffering of the lower classes. Aurora Leigh is a dramatic tale of romance involving Marian Erle, Lady Waldemar-a beautiful aristocrat-and Aurora herself. As each of these women navigates their relationship with Romney, and as Romney tries and fails to bring meaningful aid to the poor, Aurora finds that her art means nothing if she cannot learn to love herself as much as she loves others. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) is a collection of sonnets by English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Written between 1845 and 1846, Sonnets from the Portuguese is a series of love poems written by Browning to her husband, the prominent Victorian poet Robert Browning. Although Elizabeth was initially unsure of the poems, Robert encouraged their publication, suggesting she title them to make readers believe they were translations and not personal declarations of love between the couple. Using the sonnet, Browning adopted a traditional form made famous by Shakespeare while staking a claim for herself as one of nineteenth century England's premier poets. Filled with references to the Greek pastoral poet Theocritus and the tragic figure Electra, as well as invocations to God, Sonnets from the Portuguese immerses itself in biblical and classical tradition while remaining deeply personal and authentically romantic. Sonnet "XV" addresses the inherent tragedy of love, the depth of sadness with which a lover beholds another with "Too calm and sad a face," overwhelmed with the knowledge that with love comes "the end of love, / Hearing oblivion beyond memory." In sonnet "XXVIII," Browning reflects on the distance between lovers kept apart: all she has of him are her letters, "all dead paper, mute and white!" And yet, "they seem alive and quivering" in her "tremulous hands," a living reminder of the man she longs to be with. "XLIII," the most famous sonnet of the collection, begins "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," and records the poet's confession of a love more powerful than "the passion put to use / In [her] old griefs..." Not only has her lover brought her such joy, he has also given her a love she "seemed to lose / With [her] lost saints," a love strong enough to transcend religious faith entirely, a love that is destined to last, and to be even "better after death." With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Thus begins Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet "XLIII," the penultimate poem in her collection Sonnets from the Portuguese. Written for her husband Robert Browning, these sonnets are not only some of the most formally precise poems in the English language, but among the most astonishingly beautiful love poems ever written.

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are without parallel in the nineteenth century: celebrated poets, they became equally famous for their marriage. Still popular more than a century after their deaths, their poetry vividly reflects the unique nature of their relationship.
This collection presents the Brownings' work in the context of their lives: the early years and their initial friendship, their courtship and marriage, the fifteen happy years they spent living in Italy until Elizabeth's death. Both in shorter poems such as Elizabeth's "Hector in the Garden” and Robert's "Natural Magic," or in extracts from longer works such as Aurora Leigh and Pauline, the great themes they shared are all represented: love, marriage, illicit passion, England and Italy, childhood, religion, poetry, and nature.

Elizabeth's famous Sonnets from the Portuguese, based on their love affair, is included in its entirety. The poems are augmented with a generous selection of the marvellous letters the Brownings wrote to each other.

'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways' Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a poet of passion, wit and conscience. She was also a woman who wrote to speak the truth about everything she knew - and she knew just what it was like to be a thinking woman in a society that wanted women to be weak. The eldest of twelve children, she wrote poetry from the age of eleven, and became a highly successful poet in her lifetime - and remains very much loved today. She was also a strong advocate for human rights, campaigning to abolish slavery and child labour, and her three-part poem A Curse for a Nation is a powerful polemic against the slave trade. 'I heard an angel speak last night, and he said "write! Write a nation's curse for me, and send it over the western sea" '