On this date, September 12th (1846) Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning eloped and were wed at St. Marylebone Parish Church in London.
Barrett was already a respected poet who had published literary criticism and Greek translations in addition to poetry. Elizabeth had been born and home-schooled at Coxhoe Hall, a 20-bedroom mansion, in Durham. She was well educated in Greek, Latin and several modern languages as well as the literature of various cultures. Her father had arranged for the printing of one of her poems when she was only 13 but she won wide critical acclaim with her first volume of poetry, The Seraphim and Other Poems. That book was published in 1838, and was followed six years later with Poems.
Elizabeth had always suffered from frail lungs but in 1821, a serious spinal injury after a fall weakened her further. She became reclusive, even more so after the death of her beloved brother in 1840. However, her poetry was well received and brought her many visitors over the years including William Wordsworth and other renowned poets. One young man, an aspiring poet himself, wrote to Elizabeth expressing praise for her work and asking to meet her. He was Robert Browning.
Browning was the son of a bank clerk, and had studied at the University of London. He had continued his education at his parents' home, reading extensively and also writing poetry. Unlike Elizabeth, English critics dismissed Robert’s early work. Frustrated, he tried other approaches and discovered the dramatic monologue which he then began to adapt to his own poetry. His 1842 work Dramatic Lyrics was again panned by most critics but one reader who liked it was -- Elizabeth Barrett.
From their first meeting, the couple was attracted to one another and soon fell deeply in love. Barrett's strict father disliked Browning, whom he viewed as a mere fortune hunter, so most of the courtship was conducted in secret. On September 12, 1846, while her family was away, Barrett sneaked out of the house and met Browning at the church where they were married. She returned home for a week, keeping the marriage a secret, but then fled with Browning to Italy. She never saw her father again.
The Brownings lived happily in the villa of Casa Guidi in Italy for 15 years. Elizabeth's health improved and the couple in 1849 had a son they named Pen. The next year she published her best-known work, Sonnets from the Portuguese, a set of 44 poems which dealt primarily with her love for Robert. (The title of the book, by the way, came simply from Robert's nickname for the dark-haired Elizabeth, "My Little Portuguese.") In 1857, Elizabeth's blank-verse novel Aurora Leigh became a bestseller although the critics disliked the book intensely.
In 1861, Elizabeth Barrett Browning died. She was 55. During her lifetime, Elizabeth's reputation as a poet greatly overshadowed that of her husband. Indeed, he was frequently referred to as "Mrs. Browning's husband." His work began to gain recognition by critics after he moved back to England following his wife's passing.
Not a man of much mourning, Robert became an avid socialite as well as an increasingly popular poet. Best-known for the dramatic monologue technique which marked nearly everything he wrote, Robert's poetry usually spoke in the voice of an imaginary or historical character. In 1868, he published The Ring and the Book, a 12-volume poem about a true 17th-century murder trial in Rome. It remains a strange, little read work but it did not detract from his reputation and when Robert Browning died in 1889, he was given burial in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.
