Welcome to The Browning Society

Registered Charity No: 269771

About us

The Browning Society was formed in 1969 to provide a focus for contemporary interest in Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Society arranges an annual programme of lectures, visits, etc., in London and elsewhere. The aims of the Society are to widen the appreciation and understanding of the poetry of the Brownings, and other Victorian writers and poets, and to collect items of literary and biographical interest. For an account of The Browning Society formed during the poet's lifetime, see William S. Peterson's Interrogating the Oracle: A History of the London Browning Society (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1969).

Membership of the Society is open to all. The Society's activities centre on London and the South East, but members who live elsewhere in Britain and overseas are kept in touch through the journal and regular interchanges of news and information. In addition to activities and events in England, the Browning Society supports the efforts of the Friends of Casa Guidi to restore and maintain the Brownings' home in Florence, Italy.

Forthcoming Events in 2019

Annual General Meeting

and Reading of Robert Browning's Love Poems

St Marylebone Parish Church, London, NW1 5LT

Saturday 9th March at 2 pm

Following the business part of the meeting members and their guests are invited to Afternoon Tea. During Tea Michael Meredith will give an introduction to Robert Browning's Love Poems and members will read from a selection of twenty or so works. The texts of the poems read will be provided.

Members are warmly invited to choose one of the following poems to read: Song: ‘Nay but you, who do not love her . . . ; Ask not one least word of praise; Meeting at Night; Parting at Morning; Now; Love Among the Ruins; Two in the Campagna; In the Doorway; A Woman’s Last Word; The Lost Mistress; Confessions; Inapprehensiveness; A Serenade at the Villa; Humility; Summum Bonum; Love in a Life; Life in a Love; and extracts from In a Gondola (two speakers); A Lovers’ Quarrel; The Householder. Texts are available here. If you would like to take part please contact Dr Sue Brown who is co-ordinating the poetry reading at sueb.arlsq@gmail.com

Escape me?
Never
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,
So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me
Ever
Removed!