All’s Right

It seems as though a romance this significant should have happened on February 14th, but it was on this day in 1846 that one of the greatest literary romances came to its logical conclusion. On September 19th of that year, after a passionate courtship that lasted nearly two years and was conducted mainly in writing, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning married in secret against the wishes of her family. Browning was 34, while Barrett Browning was 40.

By all accounts, the couple lived happily and productively in Italy. Barrett Browning gave birth to a son, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, when she was 43.

As individuals, each half of this talented couple were counted among the most significant poets of the Victorian era. Barrett Browning, who had always been somewhat delicate and who may have suffered from tuberculosis, died in Florence in June of 1861. Barrett died in venice in December of 1889.