The Barrett-Browning volume in the 21st Century Oxford Authors series offers a comprehensive selection of the works of one of the nineteenth-century’s most famous poets. The revaluation of
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s work by feminist scholars has made her an established (indeed standard) author in university syllabuses in Britain and in America. Yet the emphasis upon her
contribution to a female tradition has tended to rigidify Barrett Browning’s contribution to English literary culture in the nineteenth century, just as her popular image as
ringleted-invalid-turned-romantic-heroine served sentimentally to eclipse her role as a literary pioneer. This edition complements or corrects these emphases by being the first edition
dedicated to witnessing the progress and growth of the poet’s creative direction - from her juvenilia through to her major achievements and beyond. In keeping with the aims of the series, the
selection honours the original sequencing of the published works as the best means of indicating the contours of Barrett Browning’s poetic career. Thus, following fairly limited selections from
published juvenilia, The Battle of Marathon (1820) and ’An Essay on Mind’ and Other Poems (1826) and from ’Prometheus Bound’ and Miscellaneous Poems (1833), there are more extensive selections
from ’The Seraphim’ and Other Poems (1838), from Poems 1844 and from Poems 1850 including the full text of Sonnets from the Portuguese. Substantial excerpts from Casa Guidi Windows (1851) is
followed by the full text of Aurora Leigh (1857) and by selections from the posthumous Last Poems (1862). These individual sections are supplemented by careful selections (also chronologically
ordered) from the correspondence, including the courtship letters with Robert Browning, and, where applicable, from poetry unpublished in the nineteenth century. The edition comes with full
scholarly apparatus (introduction, chronology, explanatory notes), though it follows the series policy of recording only significant variants between editions.
