Elizabeth Barrett Browning

English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime and frequently anthologised after her death. Her work received renewed attention following the feminist scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s, and greater recognition of women writers in English.

In poor health she lived with her father. She was a 40-year old invalid spinster when she met and fell in love with six-year-younger poet Robert Browning. With their love and marriage in 1846, Browning wrote some of the most beautiful words in the English language in her "Sonnets From the Portuguese."

Elizabeth's father, Edward Barrett, came of a Creole family from Jamaica. He had been born to wealth and ease in a slave-owning family. Sent to England for his education, he fell in love at 19 with a suitable English girl, six years his senior. Elizabeth was the first born of 12 kids in 19 years, 11 of whom lived to adulthood.

Elizabeth was a small, fine-boned, dark haired child who was the tyrant of the nursery, imperious and high-tempered. Growing up in an elegant country estate with spacious, beautiful grounds, she loved the out-doors and roamed freely. At 15, she suffered a spinal injury when saddling her horse that caused severe recurring pain and muscle spasms.

She was also a talented linguist and poet, encouraged and admired by her parents; she was published by the time she was 14.

In 1827, when Elizabeth was 21, her mother died after a long illness. Her dad was having financial reversals and had the home mortgaged. Five years later, the mortgage was foreclosed. Her dad was crushed by the humiliation and had to find means of income. A year later, in 1833, England freed its slaves and that put additional stress on the Jamaican source of family wealth.

The family moved to a lesser home for the next three years, by the sea, then to a furnished house in London. In 1838 they settled in 51 Wimpole Street.