Books with title Great Poets: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

One of the leading poets of the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a profound influence on her contemporaries and on writers that followed her. This edition provides a rich and varied selection of Barrett Browning’s poetry, including relatively neglected material from her early career and works never before included in editions of her poetry. The edition is comprehensively annotated and includes a critical introduction; detailed headnotes for each poem also provide the reader with a deep understanding of the historical, biographical, and literary contexts in which the poems were written. The extensive appendices include reviews and criticism and material on factory reform and slavery, as well as religion and the Italian Question.

I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints-I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life!-and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.Bloomsbury Poetry Classics are selections from the work of some of our greatest poets. The series is aimed at the general reader rather than the specialist and carries no critical or explanatory apparatus. This can be found elsewhere. In the series the poems introduce themselves, on an uncluttered page and in a format that is both attractive and convenient. The selections have been made by the distinguished poet, critic, and biographer Ian Hamilton.

This collection contains poems Elizabeth Browning wrote in her early days as well as the last poems she wrote before her death at 55: ballads, religious, social-reforming, and political verse. Included are: "The Dream," "The Image of God," "A Sea-Side Meditation," "The Tempest," "Night and the Merry Man," "The Romaunt of Margret," "The Romance of the Ganges," "The Lost Bower," "Rime of the Duchess May," "Catarina to Camoens," "The Romance of the Swan's Nest," "A Man's Requirements," "A Woman's Shortcomings," "A Curse Before a Nation," "Christmas Gifts," "My Heart and I," "A Musical Instrument," and several others, all of which demonstrate Browning's astonishing versatility and mastery of the English language.