Chronology of Browning’s Literary Life 1793 Birth of actor and theatre manager William Charles Macready. 1795 Birth of Thomas Carlyle. 1806 Birth of John Stuart Mill and EBB. 1809 Birth of Alfred Tennyson. 1812 RB born at Camberwell, South-East London. 1819 Birth of John Ruskin. c. 1820 RB studies at Revd Thomas Ready’s school, Peckham. 1822 Birth of Matthew Arnold. Death of Shelley. 1826 RB reads Shelley, Miscellaneous Poems. Puts together Incondita, unpublished volume of poems, later destroyed. 1828 Mill reads Wordsworth’s miscellaneous poems in the two-volume edition of 1815, and emerges from a severe depression. 1828–9 RB attends London University. Tennyson’s ‘Timbuctoo’ wins Chancellor’s poetry prize at Cambridge. c. 1830 RB belongs to ‘the Set’ or ‘the Colloquials’, informal literary and debating group and contributes to its journal, the Trifler. 1833 Monthly Repository publishes Mill’s ‘What is Poetry?’ and ‘The Two Kinds of Poetry’. EBB, Prometheus Bound. Pauline (publ. anony- mously by Saunders & Otley): no sales and few reviews. 1834 RB journeys to St Petersburg with the Russian Consul-General. Meets Amédée de Ripert-Monclar. 1835 Paracelsus: some critical success. RB becomes friendly with John Forster, editor of the Examiner, and with William Macready. 1836 ‘Madhouse Cells’ published under the name ‘Z’ in Fox’s Monthly Repository. Meets Thomas Carlyle. Forster publishes a Life of Strafford, partly written by RB. Meets Walter Savage Landor. Macready requests a play. 1837 Strafford performed five times at Covent Garden: numerous reviews, several good. Reads Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus. Carlyle, The French Revolution. 1838 RB’s first trip to Italy: visits Venice, Treviso, Bassano, Vicenza, Padua and Asolo. EBB, The Seraphim. 1840 Sordello: bad notices. Attends Carlyle’s lectures On Heroes and Hero- Worship. 1841 Bells and Pomegranates, a series of cheaply produced pamphlets (publ. Edward Moxon), begins with Pippa Passes. 1842 Bells and Pomegranates continues with a play King Victor and King Charles. Anonymous essay on Chatterton in the Foreign Quarterly Review. Bells and Pomegranates continues with Dramatic Lyrics. 1843 Bells and Pomegranates continues with two more plays, The Return of the Druses and A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon. A Blot has three unsuc- cessful performances at Drury Lane. Arnold wins Newdigate Prize for ‘Cromwell’. Carlyle, Past and Present. Ruskin, Modern Painters I. 209 210 Chronology of Browning‘s Literary Life 1844 Bells and Pomegranates continues with Colombe’s Birthday, RB’s last stage play. Journey to Italy: visits Naples, Rome and Florence. EBB contributes to R. H. Horne’s survey of contemporary literature and culture, A New Spirit of the Age. EBB, Poems. 1845 RB begins correspondence with EBB. First visits her on May 20. Bells and Pomegranates continues with Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches. 1846 Bells and Pomegranates ends with two closet dramas, Luria and A Soul’s Tragedy. Marriage to EBB on 12 September; they depart for Italy, 19 September. Ruskin, Modern Painters II. 1847 RB and EBB settle in Florence at Casa Guidi. Dante Gabriel Rossetti reads Pauline ‘with warm admiration’ in the British Museum. He guesses RB is the author and writes to him. 1849 Poems in two volumes (publ. Chapman & Hall). Sordello among a number of works excluded. Son ‘Pen’ born. Death of Browning’s mother. Unauthorized edition of Poems published in the US by Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1850 Christmas-Eve and Easter Day. EBB, Poems including Sonnets from the Portuguese, love sonnets written during the courtship. Tennyson Poet Laureate. 1851 EBB, Casa Guidi Windows. Brownings travel to Paris and visit England. Ruskin, Stones of Venice I. 1852 Essay on Shelley introduces a collection of Shelley’s letters (publ. Moxon). Letters turn out to be forged, book withdrawn. Meets Joseph Milsand. Trip to England. Meets Ruskin. Arnold, Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems. 1853 Ruskin, Stones of Venice II and III. 1855 Men and Women: no great success. 1856 EBB, Aurora Leigh: a hit with critics and public. Bequest from John Kenyon leaves Brownings financially secure. Ruskin, Modern Painters III and IV. 1857 Arnold Professor of Poetry at Oxford, inaugural lecture ‘On the Modern Element in Literature’. Ruskin, Elements of Drawing and The Political Economy of Art. 1858–65 Carlyle, History of Frederick the Great. 1860 EBB, Poems Before Congress. RB comes across the ‘Old Yellow Book’ on a market-stall in Florence. Ruskin, Modern Painters V. 1861 Death of EBB on 29 June. RB returns to live in London, taking regular summer trips abroad. Arnold, On Translating Homer. 1862 Selections from RB’s poetry, chosen by Forster and B. W. Proctor (dated 1863). EBB, Last Poems. Arnold re-elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. 1863 Poetical Works in three volumes, including Sordello. Meets Julia Wedgwood. 1864 Dramatis Personae; goes to a second edition. Beginning of RB’s popularity. 1865 Revised Poetical Works (publ. Chapman & Hall). Selected poems (publ. Moxon’s Miniature Poets). Julia Wedgwood breaks off friendship. Chronology of Browning‘s Literary Life 211 1866 Death of Robert Browning Senior. 1867 Academic honours, an MA from Oxford and a fellowship at Balliol. Sir Francis Doyle Professor of Poetry at Oxford. 1868 Poetical Works in six volumes, including Pauline (publ. Smith, Elder). Refuses rectorship of St Andrews University. 1868–9 Serial publication of The Ring and the Book (publ. Smith, Elder): enthusiastic critical reception. Arnold, Culture and Anarchy. 1869 Attacked by Alfred Austin in ‘The Poetry of the Period’ published in the Temple Bar (June). Meets Queen Victoria. Refuses to marry Louisa, Lady Ashburton. 1870 Second revised reissue of Poetical Works. 1871 Balaustion’s Adventure: a popular success, several editions issued. Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society. 1872 Second edition of The Ring and the Book. Also Selections from the Poetical Works, to be reissued many times. Fifine at the Fair poorly received and offends Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who believes it to be an attack on him along the lines of R. W. Buchanan’s article, ‘The Fleshly School of Poetry’. 1873 Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. Deaths of Mill and Macready. 1875 Aristophanes’ Apology, The Inn-Album and a third revised reissue of the six-volume Poetical Works. 1876 Pacchiarotto and How He Worked in Distemper: with Other Poems. 1877 Translation: The Agamemnon of Aeschylus. Again refused Rectorship of St Andrews. Carlyle, Characteristics. 1878 La Saisiaz and The Two Poets of Croisic. 1879 Dramatic Idyls. Honorary LL D from Cambridge. 1880 Selections from the Poetical Works, Second Series, companion volume to the 1872 selection. Dramatic Idyls, Second Series. 1881 First meeting of Frederick Furnivall and Emily Hickey’s Browning Society. Death of Carlyle. 1882 Honorary DCL from Oxford. 1883 Jocoseria successful, reaches several editions. 1884 Honorary LLD from Edinburgh University. Ferishtah’s Fancies very popular, reaches several editions. 1885 Refuses Presidency of the new Shelley Society. 1887 Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day. 1888–9 Poetical Works in 16 volumes. Death of Arnold. 1889 Asolando. RB dies in Venice. 1891 Buried in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. 1892 Death of Tennyson. 1900 Death of Ruskin. Notes Preface 1. The standard biographies of EBB are Gardner B. Taplin’s The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London, 1957) and Margaret Forster’s convincing demolition of the Andromeda myth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning: a Biography (London, 1988). 2. Stone’s invaluable book is in the Macmillan Women Writers series. She outlines the contributions of Helen Cooper, Cora Kaplan, Angela Leighton, Dorothy Mermin and others. See also Andrew Stauffer, ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s (Re)visions of Slavery’, English Language Notes, 34.4 (1997) 29–48; Sarah Brophy, ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” and the Politics of Interpretation’, Victorian Poetry, 36.3 (1998) 273–88; David Reide, ‘Elizabeth Barrett: The Poet as Angel’, Victorian Poetry, 32.2 (1994) 121–39; Pauline Simonsen, ‘Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Redundant Women’, Victorian Poetry, 35.4 (1997) 509–32. 3. Pioneering work on the Brownings and gender includes Nina Auerbach, ‘Robert Browning’s Last Word’, Victorian Poetry, 22.2 (1984) 161–73; Susan Brown, ‘Pompilia: the Woman (in) Question’, Victorian Poetry, 34.1 (1996) 15–37; Laura E. Haigwood, ‘Gender-to-Gender Anxiety and Influence in Robert Browning’s Men and Women’, Browning Institute Studies, 14 (1986) 97–118; Marjorie Stone, ‘Bile and the Brownings: A New Poem by RB, EBB’s “My Heart and I,” and New Questions about the Browning’s Marriage’, in Robert Browning in Contexts, ed. John Woolford (Winfield, KS, 1998) 213–31; John Woolford, ‘Elizabeth Barrett and the Wordsworthian Sublime’, Essays in Criticism, 45.1 (1995) 36–56. 4. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne, 1 May 1843: Kelley VII, p. 99. Long before EBB was in a position to directly affect Browning’s composition, she praised the nobility and passion of his poetry but found it lacking in harmony: ‘And the verse . the lyrics . where is the ear?’ 5. RB to EBB, 13 July 1845: Kelley X, p. 306: ‘I like so much to fancy that you see, and will see, what I do as I see it, while it is doing, as nobody else in the world should, certainly.’ 6. 30 November 1846: Kelley XIV, p. 368. 7. Maisie Ward, The Tragi-Comedy of Pen Browning (London, 1972) p. 131. 8. movies.excite.com: The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) [database online – cited 24 February 2000]. Available at http://movies.excite.com. 9. Rudolf Besier, The Barretts of Wimpole Street (London, 1930) p. 57. 10. 23 February 1846: Kelley XII, p. 98. 11. EBB to Sarianna Browning [end of March 1861]: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. Frederick Kenyon (London, 1897) II, p. 434. 12. Browning didn’t believe in monarchs, spirits or long-haired boys.