My Browning family album

by Vivienne Browning

This volume is detailed description of the family of English poet Robert Browning (1812-1889), containing "a mass of unpublished family lore & a gallery of fascinating Victorian family photographs." Robert Browning is remembered as one of the great Victorian poets, partly owing to the romance of his secret marriage to Elizabeth Barrett, but largely because of the relevance of his work still today. This book is a unique record of the poet's involvement with his enormous family circle and of the link between his work and the closeness and secretive aspects of the Browning family tradition. The author makes an acute and well-documented suggestion on the identity of Browning's first love and on the effect of this unrealizable passion on his life and writing. She maintains that knowledge of Robert's family background is essential for best understanding his poetry.