Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"This biography examines the life and works of the most famous Victorian woman poet. From a feminist perspective we see Elizabeth Barrett Browning as translator, mother, abolitionist, critic, money-earner, wife and poet. Her greatest poem, a verse-novel called Aurora Leigh, is the story of a young woman who rejects marriage for a career. The Sexual politics of its day, Aurora Leigh was condemned by Victorian critics because of its sympathetic treatment of unmarried mothers, prostitution, and women's rights. Through her art and life, Elizabeth Barrett Browning contributed to the changing image of women in the mid-nineteenth century."--Back cover.