Aurora Leigh

This is a 1857 edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh, originally published in 1856. One of Barrett Browning's most famous works, Aurora Leigh is an eponymous epic poem divided into nine books that tells the story of a female writer struggling to achieve her dreams as a poet. When her cousin, Romney, proposes marriage to her, Aurora rejects him and resolves to go to London to make her living as a poet. However, she unwittingly gets caught up in Romney's romantic affairs with two women and discovers in the end that her artistic goals and personal life are not as exclusive as she once thought. In her dedication, Barrett Browning calls Aurora Leigh "the most mature of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered."