Elizabeth Barrett Browning collection of papers

Home

Search Browse About

Items Collections Divisions

Digital Collections Using Images Using Data

Elizabeth Barrett Browning collection of papers

Navigation About Filters

This collection is also available in Archives & Manuscripts
View In Archives »

Collection Data

Description: This is a synthetic collection that consists of manuscripts, a typescript, correspondence from, to, and about the author, diaries, notebooks, financial and legal documents, portraits, and pictorial works.
Names: Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861 (Creator); Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861 (Author); Barrett, Arabella, -1868 (Addressee); Barrett, George Goodin, 1816-1895 (Author); Browning, Robert, 1812-1889 (Author); Cook, Henrietta Barrett, -1860 (Artist); Fletcher, Frank, 1870-1954 (Former owner); Forster, John, 1812-1876 (Author); Fox, W. J. (William Johnson), 1786-1864 (Addressee); Gow, Ronald, 1897-1993 (Author); Howe, W. T. H. (William Thomas Hildrup) (Former owner); Kern, Jerome, 1885-1945 (Former owner); Moulton-Barrett, Alfred Price Barrett (Author); Moulton-Barrett, Charles John (Author); Moulton-Barrett, Edward, 1785-1857 (Author); Moulton-Barrett, Harry Peyton, 1862-1935 (Former owner); Moulton-Barrett, Mary Graham-Clarke (Author); Moulton, Samuel Barrett, 1787-1837 (Author); Moulton-Barrett, Septimus James Barrett (Author); Moxon, Edward, 1801-1858 (Addressee); Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 (Addressee); Price, Robert, Sir (Author); Ruskin, John, 1819-1900 (Author); Stephen, Leslie, 1832-1904 (Author); Story, William Wetmore, 1819-1895 (Author); Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892 (Author); Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863 (Author); Trollope, Thomas Adolphus, 1810-1892 (Addressee); Westwood, T. (Thomas), 1814?-1888 (Addressee); Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850 (Author); Young, Owen D., 1874-1962 (Former owner); Barrett, Arabella, -1868 (Transcriber); Barrett, George Goodin, 1816-1895 (Addressee); Browning, Robert, 1812-1889 (Addressee); Cook, Henrietta Barrett, -1860 (Author); Cook, Henrietta Barrett, -1860 (Addressee); Moulton-Barrett, Charles John (Addressee); Moulton-Barrett, Edward, 1785-1857 (Addressee); Moulton-Barrett, Mary Graham-Clarke (Addressee); Moulton, Samuel Barrett, 1787-1837 (Addressee)
Dates / Origin: Date Created: 1764 - 1973
Library locations: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature; Shelf locator: Berg Coll MSS Browning, EB [Text]
Topics: Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861; Barrett, Arabella, -1868; Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850; Moulton-Barrett, Edward, 1785-1857; Barrett, George Goodin, 1816-1895; Wyatt, Matthew Cotes, 1777-1862
Genres: Correspondence; Diaries; Notebooks; Portraits
Notes: Biographical/historical: Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an English poet and translator. Born on March 6, 1806, Barrett Browning became proficient in Greek, Latin, French, and other European languages. At the age of eleven she wrote a verse "epic" in four books of rhyming couplets, "The Battle of Marathon," which was privately printed in 1820 at her father's expense. She went on to write such works as "An essay on mind," "Sonnets from the Portuguese," and "Aurora Leigh." In September of 1846, she secretly married the poet Robert Browning, and they moved to Italy, eventually settling in Florence, where she remained until her death in 1861.; Content: The portrait is an undated original drawing by one of Barrett Browning's sisters; the pictorial works include pencil sketches by her brother Charles John Barrett Moulton-Barrett, by her mother Mary Graham-Clarke Moulton-Barrett; and forty-seven sheets of drawings, pencil sketches, water colors, and tracings by her sister, Henrietta Barrett Moulton-Barrett. The manuscripts include an account of her first meeting with William Wordsworth, the first line "It was Wordsworth's own voice with his own soul in it"; an alphabetic address contained in a letter to her brother, Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett; a holograph of "The Brown Rosary," published in Finden's Tableux as "Legend of the Brown Rosary," in 1840; corrections and additions to the "'Brief Remarks on Hebrews Ch. 1, V. 8' in the Commentary on the first chapter of Hebrews"; two poems transcribed in the hand of her sister, Arabella Barrett entitled "Illustrative of the Frontispiece to Finden's Tableaux Representing a Sleeping Child Surrounded by Visions" and published as "A Child Asleep"; a two-part diary from 1832; four notebooks containing working drafts of poems from 1843; as well as holograph odes, sonnets, essays and other poems, some of these in the hand of the author's mother or sister. The manuscripts also include two 1973 typescripts of the first version and of the revised version of Ronald Gow's play "The Friendship of Mrs. Eckley"; poems from individuals in the author's circle and poems from and for the author's family, especially poems written on the occasion of a family member's birthday. The collection also includes George Goodin Barrett Moulton-Barrett's account book with expenses incurred by the author's brother from 1840 to 1860; the author's mother Mary Graham-Clarke Moulton-Barrett's journal containing a narrative of the journey taken with E. B. Browning, Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett, and Matthew Wyatt in 1815; legal documents from the firm of Mutlow and Barber relating to the estate of Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett, E. B. Browning's father, from 1857 to 1858; five receipts relating to business transactions of the Moulton-Barrett family; and eleven receipts from the broker A. C. Stratten for shares bought and sold for George Goodin Barrett Moulton-Barrett, the author's brother. The correspondence includes letters from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to W. J. Fox with a postscript signed by Robert Browning; to her sister Arabella Barrett Moulton-Barrett, her father Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett, her mother Mary Graham-Clarke Moulton-Barrett; as well as to Edward Moxon, Edgar Allan Poe, William Makepeace Thackeray, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, Thomas Westwood, and others. Also included is correspondence between the author's family members, many of which are birthday letters and include letters from her brother, Alfred Price Barrett Moulton-Barrett to their brother George Goodin Barrett Moulton-Barrett; from her sister Arabella Barrett Moulton-Barrett to their mother Mary Graham-Clarke Moulton-Barrett; from her brother Charles John Barrett Moulton-Barrett to their brother George, to their sister Henrietta, and to their mother Mary; from her brother Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett to their brother George; from her brother George Goodin Barrett Moulton-Barrett to their brother Charles, to their father Edward, and to their mother Mary; from her sister Henrietta Barrett Moulton-Barrett to their sister Arabella, to their brother Charles, to their father Edward, to their mother Mary, and to their brother Samuel; from her brother Henry Barrett Moulton-Barrett to their father Edward, to their brother George, and to their mother Mary; from her brother Samuel Barrett Moulton-Barrett to their brother Charles, to their sister Henrietta, and to their mother Mary; and from her brother Septimus James. The correspondence also includes letters from Sir Robert Price to the author's mother Mary; from Sir Leslie Stephen to Robert Browning relating to the author's works; from William Wetmore Story to the author's brother George relating to the author's bust; from Thomas Westwood to the author's sister Arabella relating to the author; and others. There are letters to Elizabeth Barrett Browning from John Forster, John Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, W. M. Thackeray, William Wordsworth, and various members of her family, dating from 1818 through 1875.; Ownership: The bulk of the materials was formerly owned by W. T. H. Howe and Owen D. Young. Other items, including a holograph page of directions "To the printer" and the manuscript of corrections and additions to the "Brief Remarks on Hebrews ch. 1, v. 8" were previously owned by Jerome Kern. St. Basil's panegyrical oration on the martyr Gordius, translated by H. S. Boyd contains Frank Fletcher's bookplate. One notebook of the four holograph notebooks containing the author's poems is inscribed to the author by Mary [Minto?], June 22, 1840 and another is inscribed to her in an unidentified hand. Robert Browning's holograph note "God bless my own Ba" and William Wetmore Story's 6 letters to George Goodin Barrett Moulton-Barrett came with the Moulton-Barrett papers. The 113 letters from the author to her sister, Arabella Barrett Moulton-Barrett, were formerly owned by Colonel H. P. Moulton-Barrett.
Physical Description: Extent: 609 items
Type of Resource: Text; Still image
Identifiers: NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b15859245; MSS Unit ID: 19158; Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): b6d23640-24c6-0132-82cc-58d385a7b928