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    Aurora Leigh and Other Poems

    Author Elizabeth Barrett Browning
    Edited by John Robert Glorney Bolton, Julia Bolton Holloway
    Paperback
    $18.00 US
    Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Classics
    On sale Mar 01, 1996 | 544 Pages | 9780140434125
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    Aurora Leigh (1856), Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic novel in blank verse, tells the story of the making of a woman poet, exploring 'the woman question', art and its relation to politics and social oppression. The texts in this selection are based in the main on the earliest printed versions of the poems. What Edgar Allan Poe called 'her wild and magnificent genius' is abundantly in evidence. In addition to Aurora Leigh, this volume contains poetry from the several volumes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's published poetry from 1826 to 1862, including Casa Guidi Windows (1851), Songs for the Ragged Schools of London (1854) and the British Library manuscript text of the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' (1846) which records her courtship with Robert Browning.

    For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
    Aurora Leigh and Other Poems - Elizabeth Barrett Browning Edited by John Robert Glorney Bolton and Julia Bolton Holloway

    Preface
    Acknowledgments
    Table of Dates
    Further Reading
    Aurora Leigh
    From Essay on Mind, with Other Poems (1826)
    Verses to My Brother
    Stanzas on the Death of Lord Byron [1824]
    Lines on the Portrait of the Widow of Riego
    From Prometheus Bound, and Miscellaneous Poems (1833)
    The Death-Bed of Teresa del Riego
    The Cry of the Children (1843, 1844)
    From Poems (1844)
    Past and Future
    To George Sand. A Desire
    Lady Geraldine's Courtship
    Crowned and Wedded [1840]
    Wine of Cyprus
    The Dead Pan
    Caterina to Camoëns
    The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point (1848, 1849, 1850)
    From Poems (1850)
    Flush or Faunus
    Hiram Powers' Greek Slave
    Hugh Stuart Boyd: His Blindness
    Hugh Stuart Boyd: Legacies
    Sonnets from the Portugese [1846]
    Casa Guidi Windows (1851)
    From Two Poems by Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning
    A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London
    From Poems Before Congress (1860)
    Christmas Gifts
    From Last Poems (1862)
    The North and the South [1861]
    Psyche Gazing on Cupid [1845]
    Notes
    Index of Titles
    Index of First Lines

    ROBERT BROWNING (1812–1889) was born in Camberwell, London, the son of a clerk in the Bank of England. The strongest influence on his education were the books in his father's extensive library, particularly the writings of Byron and Shelley. His dramatic poem Paracelsus, published in 1835, established his reputation and brought him the friendship of the actor-manager William Macready. When Macready's eldest son Willie was ill in bed, Browning wrote for the boy's entertainment the poem of The Pied Piper, a story he remembered from his own childhood. After its appearance in print in 1842, it became a children's classic, attracting new illustrators in every generation.

    In 1846 Robert Browning married a fellow well-known poet, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING; Elizabeth’s work is now considered among the most accomplished of the Victorian period. The couple eloped to Italy where they lived until Elizabeth's death in 1861. Robert then returned to England to live with his only sister Sarianna, but later he went back to Italy, where he died at the Rezzonico Palace in Venice. View titles by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
    "Her ardour and abundance, her brilliant descriptive powers, her shrewd and caustic humour infect us with her own enthusiasm. We laugh, we protest, we complain – it is absurd, it is impossible, we cannot tolerate this exaggeration a moment longer – but, nevertheless, we read to the end enthralled. What more can an author ask?"
    —Virginia Woolf

    About

    Aurora Leigh (1856), Elizabeth Barrett Browning's epic novel in blank verse, tells the story of the making of a woman poet, exploring 'the woman question', art and its relation to politics and social oppression. The texts in this selection are based in the main on the earliest printed versions of the poems. What Edgar Allan Poe called 'her wild and magnificent genius' is abundantly in evidence. In addition to Aurora Leigh, this volume contains poetry from the several volumes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's published poetry from 1826 to 1862, including Casa Guidi Windows (1851), Songs for the Ragged Schools of London (1854) and the British Library manuscript text of the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' (1846) which records her courtship with Robert Browning.

    For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    Table of Contents

    Aurora Leigh and Other Poems - Elizabeth Barrett Browning Edited by John Robert Glorney Bolton and Julia Bolton Holloway

    Preface
    Acknowledgments
    Table of Dates
    Further Reading
    Aurora Leigh
    From Essay on Mind, with Other Poems (1826)
    Verses to My Brother
    Stanzas on the Death of Lord Byron [1824]
    Lines on the Portrait of the Widow of Riego
    From Prometheus Bound, and Miscellaneous Poems (1833)
    The Death-Bed of Teresa del Riego
    The Cry of the Children (1843, 1844)
    From Poems (1844)
    Past and Future
    To George Sand. A Desire
    Lady Geraldine's Courtship
    Crowned and Wedded [1840]
    Wine of Cyprus
    The Dead Pan
    Caterina to Camoëns
    The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point (1848, 1849, 1850)
    From Poems (1850)
    Flush or Faunus
    Hiram Powers' Greek Slave
    Hugh Stuart Boyd: His Blindness
    Hugh Stuart Boyd: Legacies
    Sonnets from the Portugese [1846]
    Casa Guidi Windows (1851)
    From Two Poems by Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning
    A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London
    From Poems Before Congress (1860)
    Christmas Gifts
    From Last Poems (1862)
    The North and the South [1861]
    Psyche Gazing on Cupid [1845]
    Notes
    Index of Titles
    Index of First Lines

    Author

    ROBERT BROWNING (1812–1889) was born in Camberwell, London, the son of a clerk in the Bank of England. The strongest influence on his education were the books in his father's extensive library, particularly the writings of Byron and Shelley. His dramatic poem Paracelsus, published in 1835, established his reputation and brought him the friendship of the actor-manager William Macready. When Macready's eldest son Willie was ill in bed, Browning wrote for the boy's entertainment the poem of The Pied Piper, a story he remembered from his own childhood. After its appearance in print in 1842, it became a children's classic, attracting new illustrators in every generation.

    In 1846 Robert Browning married a fellow well-known poet, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING; Elizabeth’s work is now considered among the most accomplished of the Victorian period. The couple eloped to Italy where they lived until Elizabeth's death in 1861. Robert then returned to England to live with his only sister Sarianna, but later he went back to Italy, where he died at the Rezzonico Palace in Venice. View titles by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    Praise

    "Her ardour and abundance, her brilliant descriptive powers, her shrewd and caustic humour infect us with her own enthusiasm. We laugh, we protest, we complain – it is absurd, it is impossible, we cannot tolerate this exaggeration a moment longer – but, nevertheless, we read to the end enthralled. What more can an author ask?"
    —Virginia Woolf

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