Robert Browning

Courtesy of Baylor University, Texas

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Biography

Robert Browning was born on 7 May 1812, in Camberwell, south London. He was the eldest of two children born to Robert Browning and Sarah Anna Browning (née Wiedemann).

Between 1820-26 he attended the school of the Rev. Thomas Ready at Peckham, and for a short while in 1828, he attended University College London, but most of Browning's education was informal. He often had private tutors, and his father's unusually large library was at his disposal.

Browning's first publication was entitled Pauline, and was published anonymously in 1833. It was soon followed by Paracelsus (1835) and Sordello (1840). A year later, Pippa Passes, the first in a series entitled Bells and Pomegranates was published; the remaining seven parts appeared between 1841-46.

On 12 September 1846, Robert Browning married Elizabeth Barrett at St. Marylebone Parish Church, London. They left a week later for Florence, Italy, where they spent the remainder of their married life. Their Florentine home, called Casa Guidi, has been preserved as a memorial to the poets.

In 1849, the birth of his son was overshadowed by the death of Browning's mother. Also in 1849, a two-volume selection of Browning's poetry was published. The following year, Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day was published, and it was five years later before Men and Women appeared.

Courtesy of Baylor University, Texas

After the death of his wife in 1861, Browning left Florence, never to return. In 1860, however, he had bought the "Old Yellow Book" in a secondhand stall in Florence. This was the source for his epic poem, The Ring and the Book, published in 1868-69.

Between 1864 and 1889, Browning published almost two dozen titles, including: The Poetical Works (1863); Dramatis Personae (1864); Balaustion's Adventure (1871); Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (1871); Fifine at the Fair (1872); Red Cotton Night-Cap Country (1873); Aristophane's Apology and The Inn Album (1875); Pachiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper (1876); The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1877); La Saisiaz: The Two Poets of Crosic (1878); Dramatic Idyls (1879); Jocoseria (1883); Feristah's Fancies (1884); Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day (1887); and The Poetical Works (16 vols., 1888-89).

In 1867, Browning received an Honorary M.A. from Oxford and was made and Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. Later in 1882, he received an Honorary D.C.L. from Oxford. Browning died on 12 December 1889 at Ca'Rezzonico, Venice, but not before he heard the news of the success of his latest volume of poetry, Asolando, published that same day. These lines from the "Epilogue" to that volume offer a fitting tribute to one of the great poets of the Victorian age:

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

On 31 December 1889, Browning was buried in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey.

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Works

The Poems, ed. John Pettigrew, 2 vols., Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1981.

The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, 5 vols. to date, ed. Ian Jack, Rowena Fowler, Robert Inglesfield, and Margaret Smith, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983-.

The Poems of Browning, 2 vols. to date, ed. John Woolford and Daniel Karlin, London: Longman, 1991-.

The Brownings' Correspondence, 14 vols. to date, ed. Philip Kelley, Ronald Hudson, and Scott Lewis, Winfield, KS: Wedgestone Press, 1983-.

Biographical Studies

Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Life and Letters of Robert Browning, London: Smith, Elder, 1891.

W. Hall Griffin and H.C. Minchin, The Life of Robert Browning, London: Methuen, 1910.

John Maynard, Browning's Youth, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977. (The best source of information on the poet's early years.)

Betty Miller, Robert Browning: A Portrait, London: John Murray, 1952.

William Irvine and Park Honan, The Book, the Ring, and the Poet: A Biography of Robert Browning, London: McGraw-Hill, 1974.

Pamela Neville-Sington, Robert Browning: A Life After Death, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2004.

Bibliographical Studies

Leslie N. Broughton, C.S. Northup and R.B. Pearsall, Robert Browning: A Bibliography, 1830-1950, Cornell, New York: Cornell University Press, 1953.

William S. Peterson, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: An Annotated Bibliography, 1951-1970, New York: Browning Institute, 1974.

Philip Kelley and Betty A. Coley, The Browning Collections: A Reconstruction with Other Memorabilia, Waco, Tex.: Armstrong Browning Library; New York: The Browning Institute; London: Mansell Publishing Ltd.; Winfield, Kan.: Wedgestone Press, 1984.