Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Selected Poems

Description

When Robert Browning first read his future wife’s poems the effect was immediate: “I love your verses with all my heart”, he wrote to her, praising her poems for “their fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought.” For her part the 38 year old Miss Barrett was inspired by her love for Robert Browning to write the Sonnets from the Portuguese, some of the most beautiful love poetry in the English language.

This collection is loosely based on the original Crown Classics selection made by Samuel Looker in 1948, updated with poems such as The Runaway Slave and The Lady’s Yes which speak very directly to contemporary sensibilities