Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Born in County Durham in 1806, the eldest of twelve, Elizabeth Barrett began writing at eleven and never stopped — her juvenilia alone form one of the largest collections by any English writer. At fifteen an unexplained illness locked her into lifelong pain; laudanum became her daily companion, weakening her further even as she wrote prolifically through the 1840s on abolition, child labor reform, and the interior lives of women. Her 1844 Poems brought such acclaim she rivaled Tennyson for laureate. It also brought Robert Browning's letters. They courted in secret — her father would tolerate n…