Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Finalist for the 2022 Plutarch Award
Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021
“An elegant act of rehabilitation.”—New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
A "nuanced and insightful" (New Statesman) portrait of Britain’s most famous female poet, a woman who invented herself and defied her times.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." With these words, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has come down to us as a romantic heroine, a recluse controlled by a domineering father and often overshadowed by her husband, Robert Browning. But behind the melodrama lies a thoroughly modern figure whose extraordinary life is an electrifying study in self-invention.
Born in 1806, Barrett Browning lived in an age when women could not attend a university, own property after marriage, or vote. And yet she seized control of her private income, defied chronic illness and disability, became an advocate for the revolutionary Italy to which she eloped, and changed the course of cultural history. Her late-in-life verse novel masterpiece, Aurora Leigh, reveals both the brilliance and originality of her mind, as well as the challenges of being a woman writer in the Victorian era. A feminist icon, high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery, and international literary superstar, Barrett Browning inspired writers as diverse as Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf.
Two-Way Mirror is the first biography of Barrett Browning in more than three decades. With unique access to the poet’s abundant correspondence, “astute, thoughtful, and wide-ranging guide” (Times [UK]) Fiona Sampson holds up a mirror to the woman, her art, and the art of biography itself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet Sampson (In Search of Mary Shelley) takes an unconventional and intriguing look at the life of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861). The volume is structured in nine "books" to mimic Elizabeth's masterwork Aurora Leigh, and takes as its central conceit a focus on mirrors and framing. "Elizabeth dramatizes the two-way creation of every writing self, from without and from within," Sampson writes, and aims to shatter the clichés that "frame" Barrett Browning's life. Far from being the feeble, dominated invalid she's often portrayed as, Barrett Browning was a well-regarded poet and financially independent. Sampson makes the case for Barrett Browning being "radical and exciting," as she set the stage for such poets as Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, and as "someone who becomes herself through becoming a poet." Barrett Browning's family history—they made their fortune in the sugar trade, profiting from slavery—is examined, as well, and puts her involvement in the abolitionist movement in context. This account shines when breaking the mythologies that surround Barrett Browning's reputation, but the frequent reflections on framing and mirrors distracts rather than enhances. Still, fans of Barrett Browning will appreciate this refreshing portrait of the poet as an empowered woman.
