Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

by Fiona Sampson

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." With these words, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has come down to us as a romantic heroine, a recluse controlled by a domineering father and often overshadowed by her husband, Robert Browning. But behind the melodrama lies a thoroughly modern figure whose extraordinary life is an electrifying study in self-invention.


Born in 1806, Barrett Browning lived in an age when women could not attend a university, own property after marriage, or vote. And yet she seized control of her private income, defied chronic illness and disability, became an advocate for the revolutionary Italy to which she eloped, and changed the course of cultural history. Her late-in-life verse novel masterpiece, Aurora Leigh, reveals both the brilliance and originality of her mind, as well as the challenges of being a woman writer in the Victorian era. A feminist icon, high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery, and international literary superstar, Barrett Browning inspired writers as diverse as Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf.


Two-Way Mirror is the first biography of Barrett Browning in more than three decades. With unique access to the poet’s abundant correspondence, “astute, thoughtful, and wide-ranging guide” (Times [UK]) Fiona Sampson holds up a mirror to the woman, her art, and the art of biography itself.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Poetry, Victorian, 19th Century, History, Historical

336 pages, Hardcover

First published February 18, 2021

About the author

Fiona Ruth Sampson, MBE is an English poet and writer. She is published in thirty-seven languages and has received a number of national and international awards for her writing.

Sampson was educated at the Royal Academy of Music, and following a brief career as a concert violinist, studied at Oxford University, where she won the Newdigate Prize. She gained a PhD in the philosophy of language from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She advises internationally on creative writing in healthcare, a field whose development she pioneered in a number of projects and publications. As a young poet she was the founder-director of Poetryfest – the Aberystwyth International Poetry Festival and the founding editor of Orient Express, a journal of contemporary writing from Europe. She has received a number of international writers' fellowships: I.A. Literary Association, Skojcan, Slovenia, 2015, Greek Writers’ Union Writers’ and Translators’ House, Paros, 2011, Estonian Writers’ Union House, Kasmu, 2009, Heinrich Boll House, Achill Island, 2005, Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain, 2002, Hawthornden Castle, 2001, Fondacion da Casa de Mateus, Portugal, 2001. She held an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowship at Oxford Brookes University 2002-5, a CAPITAL Fellowship in Creativity at the University of Warwick 2007-8 and a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, Institute of Musical Research & Institute of English Studies: 2012-15.

From 2005-12, Sampson was the editor of Poetry Review, the oldest and most widely read poetry journal in the UK. She was the first woman editor of the journal since Muriel Spark (1947–49). In January 2013 she founded Poem, a quarterly international review, published by the University of Roehampton, where Sampson is Professor of Poetry and the Director of Roehampton Poetry Centre.

She lives in Herefordshire.

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

... for now, Papa's wealth genuinely enables Elizabeth's writing life

This (post)modern biography of EBB both conjures up the nineteenth century female poet and reveals Fiona Sampson in that eponymous 'two-way mirror' through the aspects of EBB that Simpson sees and to which she responds. There's a sense that EBB may, at times, be somewhat disappointing to an idealist and it's to Sampson's credit that she doesn't shy away from the characteristics that locate EBB within her historical and cultural milieu.

This is especially the case when it comes to Barrett wealth made through slave-worked Caribbean sugar plantations and EBB's younger self who defends the institutions and systems of slavery as economically 'necessary'. Right to the end of her life, EBB relied on slave wealth to finance her own freedom despite becoming, along with her husband, Robert Browning, (whose own family were also involved in Caribbean trading ventures) a prominent abolitionist. This isn't simply hypocrisy and certainly EBB's attitudes do changes as she matures, but it is also part of the network of capitalist compromises in which we are all embroiled. Certainly EBB writes anti-slavery poetry, just as she writes against child labour and, towards the end of her life, against imperialism: nevertheless, her own financial situation leaves her somewhat blinkered - as Sampson puts it, more generally: 'but like most people who don't have to earn their living, she doesn't understand economic bondage'.

This is not a literary biography and doesn't have much to say about EBB's poetry. There's perhaps too much enthusiasm about EBB's status as a 'radical' given that, as Sampson herself notes, she's hardly either the first female poet, or first woman to write a sonnet sequence from a female perspective (see Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus in The Poems of Lady Mary Wroth, for example) - and while a liberal, she was no socialist or revolutionary, and rejects the racier libertine elements of the Romantics, especially Byron and Shelley, for more Victorian sensibilities.

Nevertheless, I don't want to play down EBB's place in poetry or the struggles she faced, even from a materially privileged position, to live according to her own wishes with a degree of autonomy and artistic commitment. Her brave struggles with ill health, her ability to participate in London literary society through letter-writing, and her emotional conflict with her father who she both adored and who stifled her are well worth reading.

Sampson keeps this pacy with no distractions of footnotes though about a third of the book is made up of sources and end notes so it is properly referenced.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coming in at under 260 pages, this isn’t your standard comprehensive biography. Sampson instead describes it as a “portrait,” one that takes up the structure of EBB’s nine-book epic poem, Aurora Leigh, and is concerned with themes of identity and the framing of stories. Elizabeth, as she is cosily called throughout the book, wrote poems that lend themselves to autobiographical interpretation – “her body of work creates a kind of looking glass in which, dimly, we make out the person who wrote it,” Sampson asserts.

Nicknamed “Ba,” Elizabeth was born in 1806 and brought up with 11 younger siblings at a Herefordshire estate, Hope End. Her father, Edward, had been born in Jamaica and the family fortune was based on sugar – and slavery. Sampson makes much of this inherited guilt, and also places an emphasis on EBB’s lifelong ill health, which involved headaches, back and side pain, and depression. She also suffered from respiratory complaints. The modern medically minded reader tries to come up with a concrete diagnosis. Tardive dystonia? Post-viral syndrome? The author offers many potential explanations, and notes that her subject was the very type of the Victorian female invalid. She would also suffer from miscarriages, but had one son, Pen. The Brownings were in the unusual position of the wife being the more famous partner.

Sampson draws heavily on correspondence and earnestly interrogates scenes and remembrances, but her use of the present tense is a bit odd for a historical narrative, and I found my casual curiosity about the Brownings wasn’t enough to sustain my interest. However, this did make me eager to try more of EBB’s poetry. I even dug out my copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese from a box in the States the other week.

Favourite lines:

“Within the continual process of reputation-making and remaking that is literary history, Elizabeth Barrett Browning remains a bellwether for the rising and sinking stock of women writers. … Elizabeth dramatizes the two-way creation of every writing self, from without and from within. That the life of the body both enables and limits the life of the mind is the paradox of the thinking self.”

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Fiona Sampson is an excellent biography of a fascinating and complex woman.

First of all, I have to say I am thoroughly impressed with the extensive and painstaking time and research that were clearly spent in crafting this stunning biography. The author clearly has done her work in offering a memorable and wonderful book that gives its subject the proper respect and honor she deserves.

I admit I know of Ms Browning, however I was drawn to the book for the sole purpose of learning more about the woman that was such an inspiration to one of my favorite authors ever, Emily Dickinson. I knew if she was placed in a position of honor and admiration, I had to know more about her as well.

The author gave me so much more then just a biography. I feel as if I was able to take a glimpse inside her mind, her soul, and feel all the emotions she sifted through during her full life. EBB was a complex woman. She had not only societal and gender restrictions, but also obstacles set forth by family and physical illnesses to deal with as well. Through all this, she sacrificed so much to be with who she loved, she wrote stunning works, and championed women’s rights and was a passionate abolitionist. She was imperfect, yet I admire her greatly. I am so glad that I was fortunate enough to be able to read more about her through this book.

5/5 stars

Thank you EW and W.W. Norton & Company for this arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Waterstones, Instagram, Kobo, and B&N accounts upon publication on 8/17/21.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is quite an accomplishment in terms of biography. The biographer really dug deeply into the context around EBB's life and times, and that made the portrait much fuller than many bios achieve.

[Amy (literatiloves) · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5 rounded up to 4)

[Bookreporter.com Biography & Memoir · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a former daily newspaper journalist, I often engaged in vigorous debate with the better editors I was assigned to about whether the present or past tense creates greater reader impact when writing feature articles about living personalities. At first this might not seem to be a very relevant issue when considering the biography of a long-deceased Victorian poetess.

But I found Fiona Sampson's stunning TWO-WAY MIRROR so utterly captivating because Sampson, herself an accomplished UK poet, boldly uses the present tense to create striking immediacy in every twist and turn of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's extraordinary and often fraught life.

Throughout nine symbolically numbered Books (instead of chapters), whose subtitles suggest shared experience --- "How to be ill," “How to manage change," "How to be autonomous," etc. --- Sampson's dynamic here-and-now prose describes how Elizabeth (nicknamed "Ba" among her family) did things, endured things, created things, rebelled against things, or reacted to things that typified life for privileged, but creatively restricted, 19th-century Victorian women.

The immediacy of that grammatical choice to “be present” in authentically retelling an almost forgotten and often misunderstood life is a powerful draw from beginning to end. The reader of TWO-WAY MIRROR, whether familiar or not with Barrett Browning's published work, is rapidly and eagerly immersed in the public and intimate realities of an individual whose substance extends far beyond the few verse snippets taught here and there in high school.

As Sampson intuitively communicates on every page, and especially in the short reflective "frames" that connect each chapter, Elizabeth's context --- her precarious place in Victorian social, cultural and economic history --- has everything to do with how she fared as a potent but struggling artist, both before and after her escape to Italy and marriage with fellow poet Robert Browning.

Growing up as a healthy tomboyish child in rural Herefordshire, she suffered the first of many daunting reversals in fortune when barely into puberty, suffering from a sudden onset of respiratory illness that never completely subsided for the rest of her life. With her health likely damaged more by the treatments of Victorian doctors than the sicknesses they attempted to cure, Elizabeth became addicted to morphine. As a middle-aged mother decades later, she managed, by sheer force of will it seems, to reduce her dependence on the drug for long enough to give birth to a single living child, Wiedeman, or Pen as he was known to his adoring parents.

Her frequent pre- and post-marital moves among many residences, extreme even by wealthy Victorian standards, challenged her ability to find uninterrupted private time for writing. Misguided medical advice cautioning her not to write during lengthy periods as a housebound invalid further curtailed her opportunities to break free of feminine convention.

Yet as TWO-WAY MIRROR brilliantly conveys, she managed to carve out an international reputation through voluminous correspondence and publishing, one that grew steadily after her marriage to Robert Browning, who had the advantage of male privilege.

In fact, Elizabeth's poetic preoccupations with the abolition of slavery (from which her family's wealth derived), Italian politics, women's liberation before it was recognized as such, fairer child labor laws, access to education, and wide-ranging philosophical and social justice issues placed her far ahead of her time and arguably far ahead of her celebrated husband's as well.

Sampson brings Elizabeth Barrett Browning to life in a style that is both courageous and endearing --- following the chronology of her past, while artfully bringing her world and ours together in the myriad reflections of her well-tempered literary mirror.

Reviewed by Pauline Finch

[Philip Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though EBB is less read now than I believe she should be, this really extraordinary biography should bring new readers -- especially poets -- to her work and life. Long, and usually depicted as the fragile, at times tepid Romantic, it took her visionary and influential great work 'Aurora Leigh' to erase some of the untenable impressions we had of the poet. Her ideal love match with the poet Robert Browning -- a match of minds, as well as intelligences -- is the story most known; yet even there, Elizabeth was seen as six feet behind her husband. Fiona Sampson erases all previous connotations and brings the poet into full, rich, and relevant new perspective. Her research is impeccable, and she has designed each chapter as 'frames'; noting how the mirror/photographic concept works perfectly as the biography delves into the many psychological, emotional, medical ('doctors' at the time were feeding her young body opium as a prospective 'cure' for some of her spinal ailments that plagued her!), and professional life. Sampson shows us the true significance of Browning's development as a poet, a writer, and a woman committed to social and political issues later in her life. She was not the shrinking violet of her time, but rather a woman who despite the limits placed on women of the period, strove to work against them and find her individuality. Encumbered as well as supported by a huge family, and a grief-possessed, and possessive father (who owned Jamaican slave plantations handed down from previous generations), Browning found a way to go on her own, with Robert Browning at her side.

Sampson does not sidestep at all the issues of the Barrett family history of being slave owners. Indeed, Elizabeth herself had the shadow of possibly being biracial along the genetic line, and this haunted her. But she also became, along with her husband, committed to the abolitionist movement, long holding views of slavery as an abomination, no matter the taint on the family history. They eventually end up in Italy, in Rome, where today their home still resides as a museum. A remarkable reassessment of a poet, whose work, inspired by some of her contemporary greats of the Romantic Period -- Shelley, Byron, Keats -- found a singular voice. Barrett Browning here becomes more three-dimensional both as a poet and as a woman in her time. Robert Browning lived almost thirty years after her death, and to the end, he and their son Pen paid tribute to her work, even through the eventual dissipation of her readers. This biography will correct many illusions, and engender a more positive, and valuable new view of her life and work.

[Sher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an extraordinary biography, and by that I mean I have never read a biography quite like this one- the style was unusual. Between the chapters Sampson inserts a two page essay of sorts - a frame of reference of sorts that makes a commentary about points of views and how view works from psychoanalytical--personal, or sometimes philosophical standpoint of self --hence the title Two-Way Mirror.

Sampson readily admits all biographers have their lens- their bias. Sampson's voice in this biography is very much twenty-first century- contemporary -- she voices her opinions strongly about slavery and exploitation beyond just matter of fact telling of EBB's story.

I felt like I was riding along with her inner life and views as I learned about Browning's life and work. The tone and style are reflective and contemplative coupled with being scholarly. Interesting effect that made me desire to read her biography on Mary Shelly.

If you are interested in the life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her place in 19th C intellectual and literary life, and of course if you have enjoyed her poems, I believe you will find this book very stimulating. The relationship between Browning and Robert Browning is also covered in sensitive and wonderful detail. We get the story but we are privy to many questions that Sampson has about the details, and this made me actively engage with the narrative so much more than I would have norm ally. I very much enjoyed this book.

[Jacquie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to get a proof copy of this book because Fiona is a guest at Suffolk Book League in March.
I knew nothing about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the woman is fascinating. This biography very overtly tackles the question of what made someone who rarely left her room yet traveled widely in Europe, into a poet who broke through so many of the boundaries put on women. She tackles the thorny issue of abolitionists who rely on income from the sugar trade.
What makes this such a special read is that between chapters there are 'frames', short essays about ways of seeing which are reflections on biography and image. By drawing our attention to the way her image was managed in the few pictures we still have of her, and the parallels with how images are managed on social media she makes Elizabeth, who was born in 1806, nine years after Mary Shelley and ten yours before Charlotte Bronte a contempory subject.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this very academic, thoughtful look at EBB. It didn't just follow her career or family, but also talked a lot about what was happening historically and culturally during her lifetime and how that influenced her.

[Etta Madden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this biography! Best one I have read since Burning Man: The Trials of D.H. Lawrence. Deftly told, deeply researched. I learned so much about EBB that I didn’t know before.

[Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning who, despite a life of chronic ill health, a domineering and controlling father, and a society that limited and diminished the work and lives of women, became one of the most influential and successful poets of her time. She had been writing and publishing for years before meeting Robert Browning in her mid-thirties, but this relationship led to a complete change in her life, both in terms of her flight abroad to be able to live with him and to preserve her health, and her taking control of her own life at this late stage. This was a remarkable show of strength for this talented but apparently frail woman, and her subsequent years of travel and art is beautifully described in this enjoyable and illuminating biography.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have such mixed feelings about this book. It definitely makes the case for a re-evaluation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning as both poet and person - the romances about her that were current in the late Victorian and earlier 20th century are mostly completely inaccurate. I'm pretty sure I read a novel about her when I was a teenager that perpetuated those romances - the imprisoned invalid who becomes strong and creative once she finds her true love. In truth, there was always a steeliness about her that has gone mostly unmentioned, and she was better known and more successful than Browning when they met (and remained so for most of the rest of her life).

Having said that - in other ways I found this book kind of irritating. Sampson has a habit of yanking her chronology around that became a mannerism - "Elizabeth arrived in this place. It must have made quite an impression on her, because themes of X and Y often appeared in her poetry. In fact, in 18xx she published X which fully explores X and Y. BUT ALL THAT WAS IN THE FUTURE." Yes. We know. No need for that. I repeatedly got whiplash from this - both too much of a digression about the future, and too much slapping us back into order.

This wasn't the only way that chronology kind of got short shrift. In her effort to make her chapters have themes focused on what was central to Elizabeth's life in a certain period, Sampson occasionally put things from other periods of time into a chapter whose theme they fit more closely. I found that a bit distracting. In the end, I felt like I hadn't really followed her life in a detailed manner.

Sampson's attention to the slave economy of the British Caribbean was both enlightening and relevant. The Barrett family and their money were wrapped up in Jamaican sugar plantations, and Elizabeth gradually became an abolitionist partly because of what she learned from her brothers who went to manage the family estate there. She wrote an early poem about a runaway enslaved woman that was ahead of its time.

Occasionally, a sentence I'm sure Sampson felt was clever just seemed unintelligible or irritating. For example, what exactly does this, from a discussion of the Barrett family's Nonconformist religion and the religious and social ferment of the 1830s, mean: "Radical spirituality supplies drama to the drab lives of the labouring poor even as it denies their aspirations." This sentence brought me up so short that I memorized the number of the page it was on so I could come back to it. I think her point is that all the radical religious movements of the time were upper class phenomena that did not really attend to the needs of the working poor. But "supplies drama to the drab lives"?? Were their lives "drab" and did they actually attend to religious "drama"? I wish she could have made her point without insulting the working class. If this is sarcasm, it didn't come through, it might have been better to say it differently or even put "drab" in quotes so it's clearer where her thoughts lie.

Then there's this: "We've seen the female lyric 'I' be prayerful with Emily Dickinson, self-flagellating with Sylvia Plath, witness to history with Anna Akhmatova." I'd recommend she read "Red Comet," the newest Plath biography, and some of the poetry, if she thinks Plath's work is self-flagellating. I'm not an English professor but that is not a word I would have applied to Plath in any way, shape, or form. A clue to her sentiments on Plath might be found in a later remark, where she is talking about how Browning will publish Elizabeth's posthumous book - "...conspiracy stories will surround Ted Hughes's attempts to do right by his late wife Sylvia Plath's work, though his choices will clearly be good ones, as Plath's posthumous reputation attests." I can't even - Plath's reputation is not contingent upon the work Hughes did to curate "Ariel," it's based upon what's in the book. (And whether one would call Dickinson "prayerful" is a whole different discussion.)

All in all, I'm glad I read this book because it's a worthwhile look at the real Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and it makes me wish there was a published anthology of her letters. I'm going to read Sampson's book on Mary Shelley now to see if her approach is similar.

[Linda Gaines · Rating 4 out of 5]

New biography of EBB with many quotations from the outstanding poet. Her life and original family were described in ways I'd not read before. Much of the book tells of her husband Robert Browning and their writings and life in Italy. She had ill health and several miscarriages but kept writing. One son "Pen" was a joy for both the poets.

[Saswati Saha Mitra · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Two Way Mirror by Fiona Sampson from @profile.books is a well researched work on the life of the poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

What a relief it is to read about EBB without dwelling only on her fragile self! This book does justice to her many realities - her self learning, evolution as a poet from a classist to a naturalist, her chronic illnesses, her financial independence that allows her to marry a man less affluent than her, her mixed race heritage and that large Moulton Barrett family.

Sampson is objective, to the point and clinical. She introduces some interesting theoretical positions like a frame and how that shapes what you see, the high erudition of which I loved. The protagonist and the biographer both know their stuff and its really exciting to experience the mastery of two women coming together in a single work from different generations.

What I liked less though is the naming of the chapters like “how to lose a body” and at the very end, this small moment of Browning giving his wife an extra dose of morphine. In these moments, the scholarly facade gives away to a bit of populism and sensationalism which the rest of the book does not prepare you for. I almost thought did someone else add these in to make the book more saleable?

The Two Way Mirror is an important read to refresh our knowledge of EBB. She was not only a leading artist of her time but her willingness to take a political position on slavery or the Italian independence, is a great reminder of the fact that the personal is political.

Read this book to celebrate a visionary, who may be low in popular recall these days but deserves to be at the top of our minds for so many good reasons, including how to garner knowledge and experiences when society is hell bent on keeping it away from you. It provided me some comfort as I read this book and saw Afghan women protesting for their rights side by side. For a second, the world seemed like it had not changed a bit in 300 years but the exceptional bravery of these women have and will always carry the day.

[T.J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I look at the sky.
The clouds are breaking on my brain;
I am floated along, as if I should die
Of liberty’s exquisite pain.

[Ebirdy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very intellectual book. If you are a devotee of EBB and have read about her widely, as well as being a student of her times, you would probably enjoy this more then I did. I also found the "frames" between the books confusing and they didn't really add anything to the biography. But again, perhaps if you're much better read than I am, you would get something out of them

[Frances · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the page-turner I expected but I find it quite interesting to delve into Elizabeth's life. What I like most is the nine books structure which 'mirrors' that of Aurora Leigh, a sort of alter-ego of EBB.
To be honest I'm not a big fan of biography in that, as the author affirms at the beginning of the book, in some way her point of view tends to prevail and it's not so easy to offer an objective portrayal.
Also, I reckon it focuses a bit too much on her life and sorrow rather than her achievement as a poet, and why she's considered one of the greatest women poets of the 19th century. I wish it had gone deeper into her "poetry inner life".
That said, it's a good place to start if you’d like to know her better.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This biography details EBB's family life, including domineering father, fortune from enslaved labor and early medicine not ready to handle respiratory airway disease. In her late 30's, EBB escapes the family drama and elopes with Browning. Monied enough to have never prepared a meal, or cleaned house, we are asked to appreciate her "becoming" her own person in her time.

[Danielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

[DNF]

[Rena Deckard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

[Cynthia Marcus · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a traditional biography, nor is it for someone unfamiliar with Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It is an academic tome that borders on the pretentious. It makes numerous references to literary works, both known and obscure, as well as, literary magazines, essays, and newspapers. Then there is the liberal use of terms like gradies ad Parnassum, schadenfreude, soi-disant, mauvaise foi and donna di faccenda which add to the "scholarly" tone of the book. I do not know if the author was writing for her academic piers, or if she was just writing to impress herself. I do know that this work is not for a general audience interested in learning about the life and works of Barrett. To truly understand and appreciate this book a complete understanding of Barrett's life, works and the times in which she lived is a necessary prerequisite.

The first three quarters of the book discusses Barrett's life episodically. It is not until Barrett marries Browning that the book takes on the qualities of a traditional biography and follows a strict chronological timeline.

At a scant 259 pages, much of Barrett's life and works are not discussed. We are told that Barrett joined the anti-slavery cause in the latter part of her life, but how this transformation occurred and how involved she was in the abolitionist movement is never mentioned. Her dabbling in the occult is mentioned but then never fully developed. Even her relationship with her husband and child is muddled. Furthermore, there is very little dissection and analysis of her poetry. Instead the author prefers to discuss how the use of initials are a dehumanizing paralegal formula, the ideas of various philosophers like Emanuel Levinas, Edmund Husserl, Luce Izigaray and Martine Heidegger, artists like Henri Cartier-Bressond and Bridgett Riley and tains. Let's also add the author's femi-Nazi diatribes, and her anti-slavery rants. The author states that she refuses the premise of slavery. "I won't accept that people are slaves or can be property." What is there not to accept? Is the author stating that slavery never existed? There were slaves and people were bought and sold. This is fact. The author's self righteous stand on this subject does not negate the facts, nor does it make her a more just and honorable person. It just make her pompous.

I gave this book a two star rating because of its scholarly content. The title is brilliant. Rather than wade through the entire book I suggest you read the last two pages, "The Closing Frame". Those two pages are an outstanding synopsis of the book's primary concepts and are more articulate, concise and comprehensible than the other 257 pages.

[Roswitha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many people today, I mostly knew Elizabeth Barrett Browning from her sonnets, particularly #43 of “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” fame. I’d never even heard of Aurora Leigh, her epic, nine-volume verse novel about a young woman’s struggles to become a poet, until I began to read the essays in The Madwoman in the Attic. Published in the 1970s, Madwoman is a re-examination of the western canon from the point of view of women writers that set literary criticism on a new course. While not overtly autobiographical, Aurora Leigh does dramatize the challenges of being a woman poet, sometimes condescendingly referred to as a “poetess” by critics of Barrett Browning’s day.

This biography sheds new light on the poet, her family, especially her famously possessive and ill-natured father, and her relationship with Browning, whom she over-shadowed as a literary figure during her lifetime.

Perhaps one of the biography’s most startling revelations is that Barrett Browning came from a slave-holding family. Her father inherited plantations in Jamaica, and despite being a Whig and a devout Methodist or Non-conformist, a religion with more than its share of abolitionists, he had no inclination to free his 600 slaves. Elizabeth's marriage to Browning, also a Non-conformist, confirmed her abolitionist tendencies. Her politics were resolutely liberal; she eventually became a staunch supporter of Italy’s revolutionary movement to win independence from Austria.

Self-taught from her father’s library, Barrett Browning gave herself the classical education young men of her day got at school. The biography reveals how her famous ill-health was actually a way for her to gain the free time to mold herself into a poet, a quest with which her father sympathized. The only thing he couldn’t tolerate was one of his children leaving the fold to get married – or even to socialize. When Elizabeth dared to marry Browning, she was cut off from her father for life. Fortunately, she had independent means, which enabled the couple to live among the ex-patriot community in Italy.

Her relationship with Browning produced a child, despite her chronic ill health, and Sampson doesn’t quite manage to poke holes in the marriage, though she does examine its potential tensions. But it is interesting to note that it wasn’t until after Elizabeth’s death at the age of 56 (Browning was six years younger), that he came into his own as a poet and achieved widespread fame.

This is a thorough and perceptive biography that reveals Barrett Browning to have been, not just a woman who loved, but a woman who dared.

[Micebyliz]

I expected this book to be good and to be a thorough examination of the life of EBB, but i did not imagine that it would be so exceptional. Mea culpa! it's so much more than a biography (and i think i'm digging myself deeper here but you have to understand :)) i love biographies!!! i read with pleasure a bio of Somerset Maugham, for example...who does that? :)
There is heft to this book. It's deeper and has undercurrents of philosophy and wisdom. I'm not sure that i grasped everything this book was meant to teach but i tried awfully hard. It's not enough to know who all the writers and artists were or what they wrote, you have to know what impact their work had and still has, if any, and what meaning we can derive from it for our own lives. Also, who they impacted during their lives, who they knew and what events took place during their lifetimes, especially wars.
In particular, it's always good to have women's lives held up to the light because our history is so often left to the footnotes if at all. Here was someone who had faults but who found her footing.

[Klissia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some people wondering to know little details or literary aspect of Barrett work but I'm satisfed enough on seeing only a half of a
reflexion in the mirror to the victorian way of life, her emotional millieu, her relationship with family and special her father. No weakness or effusiveness here but a real portrait of a prodigy kid , a frail body with a strong mind and a modern sense of her times and space.A laureate poet and a curious human being. Despite her financial and educational privileges, her success both public and private as a female writer and woman in love can be considered a miraculous thing.

[Dave Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was not sure how much I would enjoy this book, however, I can say that I enjoyed it much more than I expected. It has just enough biography and just enough of the mechanics of poetry writing to keep me from losing interest in it. There is no question; she was a very talented and gifted person. I still don't really understand poetry, but it was wonderful to learn more about this exceptional woman.

[Dana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Insufferable preachiness. Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a “gender neutral@“ hairstyle and her family profited from “enslaved people”. Honestly, can we just see Elizabeth as others would see her in her time? Must we pass judgment on her from our woke throne? This commentary infects every chapter of the book. I don’t need to be told what to think! Just give me the facts ma’am and let me sort it out myself!

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love biographies and this was a really excellent one. I shall seek out her other books. I learnt a lot, not just about Barratt Browning and her poetry but also her world. I only really know a few of her poems. I might read Aurora Leigh though I don’t like narrative poetry. Not sure about Robert Browning. I love My last duchess though.

[Alex Stephenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The choice to narrate the whole book in present tense is an interesting one, one that I came to appreciate by the end because it gives the narrative constant motion in a way few biographies do. Very little discussion of her actual poetry here so don't expect that type of analysis - this is about placing Browning in a wider cultural context, and it is successful in that.

[Mary Grace Wehrman · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as biographies go, this one was pretty good! I didn’t appreciate the authors assumptions about EBB & Robert’s sexuality, however that is just my personal preference and not reflective on the author as a writer. I enjoyed learning how Elizabeth really paved the way for future female poets. It got kind of boring in the middle, but tbh what biography doesn’t? lol