Elizabeth Barrett Browning Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Margaret Forster

  List of Illustrations

  Chronology

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Introduction

  PART ONE 1806–1846

  PART TWO 1846–1861

  Afterword

  Author’s Note

  Notes and Sources

  Acknowledgements

  Selected Bibliography

  Index

  Copyright

  About the Book

  This biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, written with reference to Browning correspondence only recently available, argues that the poet was a strong and determined woman largely responsible for her own incarceration in Wimpole Street. The author traces her life from her early childhood and adolescence and explores her marriage. She draws a picture of early Victorian family life and aims to show that Elizabeth was a considerable and dedicated poet, self-willed, witty and courageous. Forster has also edited the companion volume Selected Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and is author of several other biographies.

  About the Author

  Margaret Forster is the author of many successful novels, including Lady’s Maid, Have the Men Had Enough? and The Memory Box, two memoirs, Hidden Lives and Precious Lives, and several acclaimed biographies, including Good Wives.

  ALSO BY MARGARET FORSTER

  Fiction

  Dame’s Delight

  Georgy Girl

  The Bogeyman

  The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff

  The Park

  Miss Owen-Owen is At Home

  Fenella Phizackerley

  Mr Bone’s Retreat

  The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury

  The Bride of Lowther Fell

  Marital Rites

  Private Papers

  Have the Men Had Enough?

  Lady’s Maid

  The Battle for Christabel

  Mothers’ Boys

  Shadow Baby

  The Memory Box

  Mother Can You Hear Me?

  Diary of an Ordinary Woman

  Non-Fiction

  The Rash Adventurer:

  The Rise and Fall of Charles Edward Stuart

  William Makepeace Thackeray:

  Memoirs of a Victorian Gentleman

  Significant Sisters:

  The Grassroots of Active Feminism 1838–1939

  Daphne du Maurier

  Hidden Lives

  Rich Deserts & Captain’s Thin:

  A Family & Their Times 1831–1931

  Precious Lives

  Good Wives:

  Mary, Fanny, Jennie & Me 1845–2001

  Poetry

  Selected Poems of

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Editor)

  List of Illustrations

  1. Coxhoe Hall, near Durham (Courtesy of Durham University Library: Edis Collection)

  2. Edward Moulton-Barrett as a young man (Courtesy of Gp Capt. John Barrett Altham)

  3. Mary Graham-Clarke before her marriage (Courtesy of Gp Capt. John Barrett Altham)

  4. Hope End (Water-colour by A. G. Thurley; courtesy of Edward R. Moulton-Barrett)

  5. Elizabeth aged 12 (Photograph of drawing by William Artaud, 1818, presented to Wellesley College by Fannie Browning)

  6. Sketch of Hope End mansion, thought to be by Henrietta Moulton-Barrett (Courtesy of Edward R. Moulton-Barrett)

  7. George, Arabella, Samuel and Charles Moulton-Barrett (Oil by William Artaud, 1818; courtesy of Mary V. Altham)

  8. Elizabeth’s brother, Edward (Pencil sketch, tinted, ca. 1825; courtesy of Capt. Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett)

  9. Elizabeth aged 14 (Oil; courtesy of Capt. Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett)

  10. Edward Moulton-Barrett (Oil by Henry William Pickersgill; courtesy of Mary V. Altham)

  11. Mary Moulton-Barrett (Oil; courtesy of Capt. Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett)

  12. Elizabeth aged 17 (Water-colour by her mother, 1823; courtesy of Mary V. Altham)

  13. Fortfield Terrace, Sidmouth (Engraving by A. Crayon, 1831; courtesy of Devon Library Services, Exeter)

  14. Tor Bay and Beacon Terrace (Pencil sketch, ca. 1839; courtesy of R. J. L. Altham)

  15. No. 50 Wimpole Street (Courtesy of Westminster City Archives, Marylebone Library)

  16. Arabella Moulton-Barrett (Photograph; courtesy of Mary V. Altham)

  17. Elizabeth, aged 34, with Flush (Water-colour by her brother Alfred; courtesy of Edward R. Moulton-Barrett)

  18. Surtees Cook (Miniature; courtesy of Mary V. Altham)

  19. Henrietta Moulton-Barrett (Miniature; courtesy of Mary V. Altham)

  20. Mary Russell Mitford (Miniature by A. R. Burt, 1832; courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC)

  21. John Kenyon (Drawing; courtesy of John Murray Ltd)

  22. Anna Jameson (Lithograph by R. J. Lane after the painting by H. P. Briggs; courtesy of Macdonald & Co. Ltd)

  23. Robert Browning (Portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1855; courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)

  24. Sonnet XLIII, Sonnets from the Portuguese (Courtesy of the British Museum)

  25. Robert Browning, Senior (From the Browning Photograph Album; courtesy of the Master and Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford)

  26. Sarianna Browning (From the Browning Photograph Album; courtesy of the Master and Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford)

  27. Casa Guidi, interior (Painting by George Mignaty, 1861; courtesy of Rare Books & Special Collections, Mills College, Oakland, California)

  28. Pen Browning, aged 9 (Photograph, 1858; courtesy of Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts)

  29. Elizabeth with Pen, Rome, 1860 (From the Browning Photograph Album; courtesy of the Masters and Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford, and of the Browning Institute, Inc.)

  30. Casa Guidi, exterior

  31. Robert Browning, Rome, 1860 (From the Browning Photograph Album; courtesy of the Masters and Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford)

  32. Elizabeth, Rome, May 1861 (Photograph; courtesy of the Browning Institute, Inc.)

  33. ‘My fig tree’, Siena, 1860 (Drawing by Elizabeth; reproduced from Sotheby’s Catalogue, 1913, courtesy of Philip Kelley)

  Drawings in text

  1 A cricket game seen from the schoolroom window (Pencil sketch by Henrietta Moulton-Barrett, 1831; courtesy of Mary V. Altham)

  2 Pen’s drawing of Robert Browning, 1853 (Courtesy of the British Museum)

  The author and publishers would like to thank Philip Kelley and Edward R. Moulton-Barrett for their invaluable help in providing prints and details of the attribution and whereabouts of illustrations.

  Chronology

  1806 6th March – birth E B B at Coxhoe Hall, Durham.

  1809 Barrett family move to Hope End, nr. Ledbury, Herefordshire.

  1815 June – X Waterloo.

  October – EBB and parents spend month in Paris.

  1817 EBB starts The Battle of Marathon while on holiday at Ramsgate.

  1820 6th March – 50 copies of The Battle of Marathon privately printed.

  1821 May – E B B’s first magazine publication (New Monthly Magazine).

  June – sent to Gloucester Spa.

  1822 c. May – returns to Hope End.

  1823 Holiday in Boulogne.

  1825 EBB goes for long stay with paternal grandmother in Hastings.

  1826 25th March – An Essay on Mind, with Other Poems published.

  1828 7th October – death of Mary Moulton-Barrett, EBB’s mother.

  1830 December – death of EBB’s paternal grandmother – leaves her money.

  1831 EBB keeps a diary for a year.

  1832 Hope End sold – Barretts leave for Sidmouth, Devon.

  1833 May – translation of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound published.

  August – Parliament votes to abolish slavery.

  1835 EBB and family settle in London.

  1837 20th June – Queen Victoria ascends throne.

  1838 6th June – The Seraphim, and Other Poems published.

  August – EBB goes to Torquay to convalesce.

  1840 Bro drowned.

  1841 EBB returns to London.

  1844 Poems, 2 volumes, published.

  1845 January – Robert Browning writes first letter to EBB.

  May – R B makes first visit to EBB.

  1846 12th September – EBB marries RB.

  19th September – leave secretly for Italy.

  1847 Brownings move from Pisa to Florence.

  1848 EBB begins Casa Guidi Windows.

  1849 9th March – birth of Pen.

  1850 Poems, new edition, published.

  1851 May – Brownings set out for London.

  – Casa Guidi Windows published.

  Winter – go to Paris.

  1852 July – second London visit.

  October – return to Florence via Paris.

  1853 EBB begins Aurora Leigh.

  Summer in Bagni di Lucca.

  Winter in Rome.

  1854 May – return to Florence.

  1855 January – EBB ill.

  July – third London visit.

  Winter in Paris.

  1856 Aurora Leigh completed.

  June – fourth London visit.

  October – return to Florence.

  December – death of Kenyon leaving legacies to Brow
nings.

  1857 April – death of Edward Moulton-Barrett.

  1858 July – holiday in northern France with both families.

  Winter in Rome.

  1859 June – return to Florence.

  Napoleon III signs armistice at Villafranca.

  EBB very ill.

  Winter in Rome.

  1860 March – Poems Before Congress published.

  June – return to Florence.

  Summer in Siena.

  November – winter in Rome.

  – death EBB’s sister Henrietta.

  1861 EBB confined to room during winter.

  June – return to Florence.

  – death of Cavour.

  – collapse of EBB.

  29th June – death of EBB.

  1st July – buried in Protestant cemetery, Florence.

  FOR MY FRIEND

  MARGARET CROSTHWAITE MADDERN

  TO CELEBRATE

  THIRTY YEARS’ CORRESPONDENCE

  IN THE BEST EBB

  TRADITION

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  A Biography

  Margaret Forster

  Introduction

  The case for a new, full-length biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning is quickly made. The standard work has remained Gardner Taplin’s The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning since it was published in 1957 (shortly after Dorothy Hewlett’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1953) but in the intervening thirty years there have been exciting discoveries of new material which have added a great deal to the knowledge of her life. In addition, modern feminism has inspired a new interest in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry – Aurora Leigh was reprinted in 1978 for the first time since 1902 and acclaimed as a feminist epic.

  One of the problems for biographers up to now has been the dearth of material on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s early life and so, because of the limitations of the available material, what has come to dominate biographies of her are those brief though fully documented twenty months during which Robert Browning courted, married and secretly spirited her away to Italy. The source of all information during this period is of course the love letters which are indeed so fascinating that biographers can hardly be blamed for choosing to plunder such riches and make extravagant use of their findings. But the new material discovered in the last three decades includes hundreds of letters covering Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s childhood, adolescence and her adult life before she married, and many more written during her marriage. These inevitably change perceptions of her.

  The discovery of these letters is in a great measure due to the efforts of one man, Philip Kelley. While a student at Baylor University in Texas, Philip Kelley worked in the Armstrong Browning Library there, helping to prepare a checklist of all known Browning letters. In 1959, after graduation, he came to England and worked in various antiquarian bookshops, all the time pursuing his now avid interest in both Brownings. During that year he was introduced to Edward Moulton-Barrett, the great-grand-nephew of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. With Edward Moulton-Barrett’s encouragement and help Philip Kelley began contacting other family members and tracking down their collections of papers. By the end of his first year he had turned serious sleuth. More than four thousand unpublished documents relating to the Brownings had been located. Philip Kelley was convinced that there were still many more Browning letters in existence if only he could accede to them. To do this he had to attract attention to his project: commemorating the centenary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s death, on 29th June 1961, seemed the ideal way of doing so. The exhibition, sponsored by St Marylebone Central Library, opened on 31st May 1961. Before it ended Philip Kelley made a dramatic and unexpected discovery.

  On June 29th itself, the anniversary of the day of Elizabeth’s death, Philip Kelley was looking through some documents in a solicitor’s office, in company with some members of the Barrett family, hoping to find those letters written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning to her father and known to have been returned, unopened, to her. Instead, he found a diary, written by Elizabeth mostly during her twenty-sixth year. It was in two parts. The first, covering June to December 1831, was wrapped in manila paper and enclosed in a black silk slip-case. The second, covering January to April 1832, was in the centre of a volume bound in Russian leather used by Elizabeth to make notes on her reading. This second part had been tampered with. Eighteen pages were cut in half, fifty-six completely excised. Philip Kelley edited this diary with the help of Ronald Hudson and it was pubished by the Ohio University Press in 1969. John Murray published Elizabeth Berridge’s abbreviated version in 1974.

  By now, Philip Kelley was a man obsessed. His original aim – to provide a checklist of all known Browning letters – had widened alarmingly into a desire to collect and publish all the unknown ones. In order to do this he eventually set up his own press in 1979, the Wedgestone Press. He made his home in Winfield, Kansas, into a kind of Browning factory, where helpers literally clocked in and out as they worked on deciphering, transcribing and computerising the Brownings’ correspondence. Later the whole project was transferred to a downtown business building. The work has been funded for the last ten years by a variety of grants. The first volume off the Wedgestone Press was The Brownings’ Correspondence: A Checklist. It was this volume which gained the grant (from the National Endowment for the Humanities) desperately needed to start funding the publication of the actual correspondence. Volume One (1809–1826) appeared in 1984. To date, five volumes have been published, bringing this correspondence up to 1842. Suddenly, the whole of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s childhood and adolescence can be explored – no longer is the frail invalid of Wimpole Street a puzzle to us as she waits to hear Robert Browning’s step on the stair. We now are in a position to know her rather better than she knew herself. We can smile at some of the things she tells Robert, knowing exactly what she has glossed over, and frown at some of her more extravagant denials, knowing she has contradicted herself in making them.

  Any biographer presented with all these formerly inaccessible letters to and from Elizabeth would feel rich indeed. But there is even more wealth, enough to satisfy the greediest, in these first five volumes. As well as impeccable notes and appendices they contain a checklist of Supporting Documents. Many extracts from these documents are given (they consist mostly of letters to and from various relatives and family friends). The additional information they contain is substantial. People immensely important but up to now shadowy come to life, and it is most helpful and illuminating to have the letters of Mr Barrett to some of his other children during the various crises in Elizabeth’s life. It is Mr Barrett who gains most through this imaginative publishing of these supporting documents. But the Browning correspondence in its glorious entirety – it will cover the whole lives of both poets – has as yet been published only up to 1842. It will be immediately obvious that, although superbly fed on juvenilia and given immense aid to understanding Elizabeth Barrett before she met Robert Browning, the biographer now finds the source material for Elizabeth’s pre-marriage days to be much fuller than for the post-marriage ones. Fortunately, some of the letters which will be published in the complete correspondence have already been published elsewhere. The first volume of selected letters was published in 1958 – Letters of the Brownings to George Barrett, edited by Paul Landis with the assistance of Ronald E. Freeman. George was Elizabeth’s lawyer brother. Elizabeth expected George to side with her upon her marriage but to her intense distress he supported his father. She was estranged from him until 1851, when after a reconciliation, their correspondence resumed. Then there are Elizabeth’s letters to Mrs David Ogilvy, edited by Philip Kelley and Peter N. Haydon and published in 1974. Mrs Ogilvy was a young Scots woman, a poet herself, who briefly lived above the Brownings in Casa Guidi in Florence. One of her sons was almost exactly the same age as Pen, the son of Elizabeth and Robert, and the two mothers enjoyed a pleasant if not deep friendship based on this connection. There is also the three volume edition of Elizabeth’s letters to her friend Miss Mary Russell Mitford edited by Meredith B. Raymond and Mary Rose Sullivan and published in 1983. After her marriage Elizabeth’s letters to her friend were neither as full, nor as frequent and free in expression as before it, but the last of these three volumes contains a great deal of new material on the marriage years. There is also a huge amount of fascinating domestic trivia in a book published in 1979 by the Browning Institute. This is Edward C. McAleer’s The Brownings of Casa Guidi, which covers only the marriage years. Volume Five of the Browning Institute Studies is also full of extracts from Elizabeth’s letters to Arabel (her other sister) from Italy.