Robert Browning biography

 Robert Browning  1812-1889

LIFE

Born at Camberwell, London, the son of a scholarly and prosperous father

and a nonconformist mother, Browning was a precocious child whose

education by private tutors was rather desultory. His parents were

wealthy enough to allow him to travel and to take up the 'profession'

of poet, which he decided upon at the age of seventeen. All his early

works were published at his father's expense. (Indeed, he was almost

unknown to the general public until the publication of Men and Women

in 1855.)

In 1846 he eloped with Elizabeth Barrett, and for the next fifteen

years they lived happily in Italy (mainly in Florence). After his

wife's death in 1861 he lived for the most part in London, achieving

fame with the publication of The Ring and the Book in 1868 and 1869.

He was made an honorary MA of Oxford and an honorary Fellow of Balliol;

in 1881 the Browning Society was formed.

He died in Venice, and was brought back to England and buried in

Westminster Abbey.

PRINCIPAL WORKS

Pauline  1833

Paracelsus  1835

Strafford  1837

Sordello  1840

Bells and Pomegranates  1841-1846

Men and Women

Dramatis Personae  1864

The Ring and the Book  1868-1869

Balaustion's Adventure  1871

Fifine at the Fair  1872

Red Cotton Nightcap Country  1873

The Inn Album  1875

Pacchiarotto 1876

Dramatic Idylls  1879, 1880

Jocoseria  1883

Ferishtah's Fancies  1884

Asolando 1889

THE POEMS

MEETING AT NIGHT and PARTING AT MORNING

These two poems - separate, but often thought to belong together - were

published in Bells and Pomegranates (Dramatic Lyrics) in 1842.

MY LAST DUCHESS - FERRARA

Published in Bells and Pomegranates (Dramatic Romances) in 1845.