Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806, at Coxhoe Hall in County Durham, England, the eldest of twelve children to Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett and Mary Graham Clarke. Her arrival marked the first in her family born in England in over two centuries, as the Barrett fortune stemmed from vast sugar plantations in Jamaica. The family soon moved to Hope End, a sprawling estate near Ledbury in Herefordshire…
“I am not desponding by nature, and after a course of bitter mental discipline and long bodily seclusion, I come out with two learnt lessons—the wisdom of cheerfulness—and the duty of social intercourse.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Political Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Longing, Tenderness
Amelia Alderson Opie entered the world on a crisp November day in 1769, born into the bustling heart of Norwich, that ancient cathedral city pulsing with intellectual and radical energy. The only child of Dr. James Alderson, a respected physician known for his generosity to the poor and his progressive views, and his wife Amelia Briggs, she arrived on November 12, destined to weave her own vibrant thread into the tap…
“If I did not love to be alone, and enjoy the privileges leisure gives, what would have become of me!—but I love my lot, and every year it grows dearer still.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
