THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett ___ 1806-1861
___ British ___ poet
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Elizabeth Barrett was born at Coxhoe
Hall, Durham, the eldest in a large family, but moved with the family to
Hope End, near Ledbury in Herefordshire, when only three. She was educated
at home, learning classics and several modern languages. When 13, her father
arranged to have one of her epic poems ('The Battle of Marathon') printed.
When 15, she suffered a bad fall and injured her spine. Subsequently, poor
health meant she devoted most of her time to reading and writing. In her
early 20s, she became friends with a classicist, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who had
moved into a house nearby. In 1828, Elizabeth's mother died, and, during
the following years, her father's income (based on Jamaican sugar plantations)
declined badly. The family sold Hope End, and moved first to Sidmouth in
1832 then, three years later, to London. In 1838 Barrett published her first
major book, 'The Seraphim and Other Poems', which received critical acclaim.
The same year she went to stay in Torquay, Devon, for health reasons, and
it was there that her favourite brother, Edward, drowned. The accident caused
her much distress. Eventually, she returned to London where her reputation
as a poet continued to grow. In 1844, the poet Robert Browning began a correspondence
with her, which led to an engagement in 1845, and, because her father disapproved,
a secret marriage in 1846. The couple went to Italy where Elizabeth's health
improved, where she had a son, and where she stayed for the rest of her
life.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1831-1832 ___ social family health
WEB TEXT LINKS
letters
NOT diary
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Unpublished Diary of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning
The Barretts at Hope End: The Early Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |