Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), English poet. Born Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett in County Durham, England, she was the eldest of 12 children. She was a prodigious writer of poems from the age of just six years. She suffered intense head and spinal pain from the age of 15, treated by laudanum, which led to frail health for her whole life. She entered literary society in about 1830, with her first mature collection of poems published in 1838. Writing in the early 1840s, she also campaigned for the abolition of slavery and for the reform of child labour law. She married fellow poet Robert Browning in 1846, the couple moved to Italy and had a child. The following decades saw her fame grow, although her health deteriorated. She died in Florence in 1861 of an unknown illness. |