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Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in Camberwell, a suburb in London. His father, also called Robert, had angered his own father and forgone a fortune—he had been sent to a sugar plantation in the West Indies, but upon seeing the harsh treatment of the slaves, he gave up the family business. Browning’s father returned to England and worked as a clerk in the Bank of England. On such a modest salary, he was still able to marry, raise a family, and acquire a 6000-volume library.

Browning’s mother, Sarah Anna, was an accomplished pianist, and Browning’s father was an exceedingly well-read man. Consequently, most of the poet’s education came at home. A bright child and voracious reader, he had finished most of the volumes in his father’s library and had learned Latin, Greek, French and Italian by the time he was fourteen. Browning’s wide but unsystematic reading during his youth laid the foundation for the diversity of interests in his poems and also explains why his allusions are sometimes obscure and hard to recognize. In 1826, a cousin gave him a volume of Shelley’s lyrics, which influenced Browning so much that he declared himself, if only temporarily, a vegetarian and an atheist like Shelley. However, the literary effect went far deeper and led Browning to read other romantic poets, like Keats, and to recognize that poetry was to be his life’s work.

In 1828, Browning enrolled in University College, London, but dropped out after a year to pursue his own reading at his own pace. Thereafter, he lived with his parents until he was 30. During this time he published his first work, Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession (1833), anonymously. It is ostensibly a dramatic monologue addressed to an imaginary Pauline; however, most of its early readers assumed that it was a naked revelation of the poet's own adolescent passions and preoccupations. John Stuart Mill commented scornfully on the poet's exposure and indulgence of his own emotions and his "intense and morbid self-consciousness." It is widely believed that it was Mill’s critique that led Browning to avoid writing any more poetry which would leave him open to attacks of this kind.

  One of Browning’s most notable admirers was the poet Elizabeth Barrett, who praised him in some lines of her Poems (1844). When he wrote to thank her, a passionate correspondence followed. They met in May 1845 and discovered that they were deeply in love and wished to wed. Elizabeth was an invalid and her father was very protective of her and opposed to the marriage. Nevertheless, the two married secretly in September 1846 and a few days later eloped to Florence, Italy. Elizabeth’s health improved dramatically and their marriage was strikingly happy and successful. Their son, Robert Wiedemann Browning ("Pen"), was born there in 1849.
 

Unfortunately, despite her improving health, Elizabeth was still very weak. She died on June 29, 1861, with her husband by her side. Browning was heartbroken and decided to leave Florence at once, never to return.

He brought his son with him to London and continued to write there. In four monthly volumes (1868-1869) Browning published The Ring and the Book, based on an "old yellow book" which told of a Roman murder. This extensive work of poetry finally won him considerable popularity. He and Tennyson were now mentioned as the foremost poets of the age. Although the late 60’s were the peak of his career, his influence continued to grow and finally lead to the founding of the Browning Society in 1881. He died in 1889 of bronchitis, on the same day that his final volume of verse, Asolando, was published. He is buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.