Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

(born March 6, 1806, near Durham, Durham, Eng.—died June 29, 1861, Florence) British poet. Though she was an invalid who was afraid to meet strangers, her poetry became well known in literary circles with the publication of volumes of verse in 1838 and 1844. She met Robert Browning in 1845 and, after a courtship kept secret from her despotic father, they married and settled in Florence. Her reputation rests chiefly on the love poems written during their courtship, Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). Her most ambitious work, the blank-verse novel Aurora Leigh (1857), was a huge popular success.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica