How Do We Celebrate Thee? Happy 214th Birthday, Elizabeth Barrett Browning!

Baylor University's Armstrong Browning Library is home to thousands of items related to historic literary couple

Media Contact: Eric M. Eckert, Baylor University Media and Public Relations, 254-710-1964
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WACO, Texas (March 5, 2020) – Baylor University’s Armstrong Browning Library and Museum has amassed one of the world’s largest collections of physical and digital research materials centered on one of history’s most noteworthy literary couples (and lovebirds), the Victorian poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Known far and wide – and most popularly – for her 1850 collection Sonnets from the Portuguese (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”) Elizabeth Barrett Browning is honored each year on her birthday, March 6.

This year, Armstrong Browning Director Jennifer Borderud highlighted several key – and some lesser-known – items from the collection that help tell the deeper story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She pulled a piece or two from each of the major sections of the collection: manuscripts, letters, likenesses, the Brownings’ library and the poet’s personal effects.

Manuscripts: A rare working draft of "Sonnet No. 5"

Armstrong Browning Library holds more than 300 original manuscripts written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Included in the manuscripts are early drafts and fair copies of her poetical works, verse and prose notebooks, verse and prose translations of classical authors, memoranda, marginalia and proofs of her works that often incorporate handwritten notes, evidence of her input into the editing process.

Among the manuscripts is a notebook that is full of poems – a number which were not published during her lifetime. But it’s a handwritten draft of a poem at the back of the notebook that excited Browning scholars, Borderud said.

“On the inside back cover of this particular notebook, we have what we believe is the only known working draft of a sonnet – ‘Sonnet No. 5’ – from Sonnets from the Portuguese,” Borderud said. “That was a very special find.”

Letters: A letter sharing her thoughts on slavery in America

Armstrong Browning Library holds more than 400 letters written to or by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In these letters, the poet discusses her day-to-day activities, her life with Robert Browning and their son, their relationships with family, friends and other literary and artistic figures, her works and the critical responses to them, and her views on the social and political issues of her day.

One letter of note, dated Dec. 17, 1846, was written to the American poet James Russell Lowell, who had asked her to write a poem about slavery for publication in America. Elizabeth Barrett Browning sent the letter from Pisa, Italy, where she and her new husband, Robert Browning, were visiting after their elopement. The correspondence provides insight into their marriage and gives her views on slavery and her poem “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point.”

“Even though she is most well-known for the love poems she wrote to Robert Browning, she also used her poetry to address issues of her day, such as slavery, child labor and the role of women,” Borderud said.

The letter, written front and back on a small, fragile piece of paper, states in part:

“[T]he great antislavery cause must always be dear to me – and for the sake, I will say, as much of American honour as of general mercy & right – In the poem I enclose to you I have taken up this double feeling, (with an application of the case to women especially) perhaps you will think too bitterly & passionately for publication in your country. I do not presume to decide – I leave it entirely, of course, to your judgement – I will only say, for my own part, that in writing this poem, I have not forgotten, as an Englishwoman, that we have scarcely done washing our national garments clear of the dust of the very same reproach.”

Likenesses: Photos used to recreate the poet's dresses

Armstrong Browning Library holds approximately 25 likenesses of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. These include photographs, busts and engravings.

The handwritten note on one of the framed photographs of the poet reads: “Elizabeth Barrett Browning for RB only—with all her love & very little likeness. Sept. 17. 1858.”

Three of the photographs, from 1858, 1860 and 1861, have a more contemporary meaning, Borderud said. They were each used by Barbara Neri, an artist, writer and scholar, who has done extensive research on the clothing of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Neri used the images to recreate two of the poet’s dresses. Neri will bring the dresses with her to Baylor’s campus when she will share her research at this year’s Browning Day celebration.

Neri will share her research and have the dresses on display at 3 p.m. April 24 in the Library’s Hankamer Treasure Room. Her lecture is titled: “Creating Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Lace, Silk and Velvet: The Poetry and Politics of Her Fashionable Photographs.” The lecture is free and open to the public.

Brownings’ Library Collection: Self-taught in Latin and Greek

Armstrong Browning Library owns more than 875 books that belonged to the Brownings or their close family members. This number is believed to be approximately a third of the Brownings’ total library that is known to exist.

Among the collected items are a large 1602 edition of The Workes of Our Ancient and Learned English Poet, Geffrey Chaucer, which is inscribed by both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning, and a tiny personal copy of Homer’s Odyssey, which is in Greek.

The latter is filled with margin notes written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

“The book is extensively annotated by Elizabeth in both Greek and English,” Borderud said. “This is significant because Elizabeth did not have a formal education like her brothers, who were sent away for school. She befriended scholars and was, for the most part, self-taught in Latin and Greek.”

In addition to Latin and Greek, Elizabeth Barrett Browning could also read in the modern languages of French, Italian and Portuguese.

Personal Effects: A gift from her jewelry box

Armstrong Browning Library owns many personal effects and other household items belonging to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, such as her inkwell, pieces of jewelry, a teapot, locks of hair and much more.

A recent acquisition to the Library is a pair of silver hatpins, possibly from the 18th century.

A note accompanying the hat pins was written by the Brownings’ daughter-in-law, Fannie Barrett Browning, who had gifted the items to a friend. Fannie had received the hat pins from her father-in-law, Robert Browning, whom she referred to as “the Poet.”

The note from Fannie reads: “These little pins are from Mrs Browning’ jewelry box which the Poet gave me the Spring after I become his ‘daughter’—he never would say ‘in law.’ My sister tells me you love him & his marvelous work. F.B.B.”

More information about the Brownings and the collection can be found on the Armstrong Browning Library and Museum website.  

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