Elizabeth Barret Browning's life

Elizabeth Barrett was an English Romantic poet. Born in 1806 at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England, she was the oldest of twelve children. Her family was from Jamaïca, where her father had plantations and she was the first to be born in England. She spent her childhood in Hope End, at Ledbury, Herefordshire. She was educated at home and began to write very early. Elizabeth did not have a good health. She developed a lung aliment and also suffered a spinal injury while she was riding a pony at the age of fifteen. Her health got worse after the tragic death of her brother Andrew ("Bro") in 1840 while they were at Torquay, Devonshire.
 
Elizabeth began to write early. She taught herself Hebrew and was also interested in Greek studies. In 1826, she anonymously published her collection An Essay on Mind and Other Poems. She also published her translation of Prometheus Bound in 1833. In 1844, she published her collection of Poems. They gained the attention of the poet Robert Browning and he wrote her a letter. They exchanged letters during the next twenty months and finally became engaged in 1845.But their romance was opposed by her father, who did not want his children to marry, and they eloped in 1846 to settle in Florence, Italy. Elizabeth bore a son, Robert Wideman Browning.

In 1850, her Sonnets from the Portuguese were published. They were dedicated to her husband. In Casa Guidi Windows and Poems before Congress, Elizabeth expressed her sympathy for the Italian stuggle for the unification of Italy. She was very interested in social justice. Her poem "A Curse For A Nation" was published in a Bostonian abolitionist journal. In 1857, she published her novel Aurora Leigh, which can be called as semi-autobiographical.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in Florence in 1861. She is remembered as one of the greatest poets England has ever had.