Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning

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.

These poems have long been considered the finest written by a woman in the English language, their literary excellence is surpassed only by the sonnets of Shakespeare. First published in 1850, "Sonnets from the Portuguese" is composed of forty-four poems which Elizabeth had secretly written for her husband, Robert Browning.

The Brownings’ astonishing romantic and poetic relationship is here preserved in a representative single volume. AN EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY POCKET POET.

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are without parallel in the nineteenth century: celebrated poets, they became equally famous for their marriage. Still popular more than a century after their deaths, their poetry vividly reflects the unique nature of their relationship.

This collection presents the Brownings’ work in the context of their lives: the early years and their initial friendship, their courtship and marriage, the fifteen happy years they spent living in Italy until Elizabeth’s death. Whether in short poems such as Elizabeth’s "Hector in the Garden" and Robert’s "Natural Magic," or in extracts from longer works such as Aurora Leigh and Pauline, the great themes they shared are all represented: love, marriage, illicit passion, England and Italy, childhood, religion, poetry, and nature. Elizabeth’s famous Sonnets from the Portuguese, based on their love affair, is included in its entirety.

The poems are augmented with a generous selection of the marvelous letters the Brownings wrote to each other.

First published in 1850 and considered some of the finest love lyrics in the English language, Sonnets from the Portuguese comprise 44 interlocking poems that Elizabeth Barrett Browning composed for her husband, Robert Browning.  This wonderful illustrated edition includes 22 additional works as well.

Robert Browning, a towering poetic presence of the Victorian era, was hailed by Henry James as a tremendous and incomparable modern. The sheer immediacy and colloquial energy of his poetry ensure enduring appeal. Browning paints landscapes both suburban and sublime, combines lyric and demotic language, and introduces everyday events of the streets and marketplace into the rarified world of Victorian poetry.

This edition includes examples from the early Dramatic Lyrics (1842) and Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845); from the masterpieces Mena and Women (1855) and Dramatis Personae (1864), and from the less familiar works of his later years. Together they convey the intensity, the lyric beauty, and the vitality of Browning's poetry.

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.

Robert Browning’s famous verse retelling of the medieval legend of the Pied Piper is renowned for its humor and vivid wordplay. When the selfish townspeople of Hamelin refuse to pay the piper for spiriting away the hordes of rats that had plagued them, he exacts his revenge by luring away their greatest treasure, the children of the town.

Color reproductions of Kate Greenaway’s beautiful, delicate watercolor illustrations adorn every page.