Author Description

Barbara Dennis's much-needed study provides a new and illuminating perspective on Barrett Browning, focusing on her crucial early years at Hope End, near Ledbury. Drawing on previously neglected material from Barrett Browning's diaries and her unpublished notebook of 1822-1824, Dennis reveals an active and inquisitive young woman, delighting in exploring the Herefordshire countryside and often critical of authority. A precocious poet, Elizabeth published her first poem, The Battle of Marathon, at fourteen; her second poem An Essay on Mind brought her critical recognition, and friendships that were to remain important to her throughout her life, including that with Hugh Boyd, for whom she developed an intense infatuation. But Elizabeth's life at Hope End was not only one of books: we learn of her love for her family, especially her brother Bro, whose tragic early death made it too painful for her ever to return to Hope End after the family's move to London, and her early happy relationship with her father, who affectionately dubbed her 'the Poet Laureate of Hope End' and encouraged her ambition.