by Fiona Sampson (Profile £20, 336 pp)
During her lifetime, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was our most popular woman poet yet, today, even the most passionate poetry lover would struggle to quote more than a few lines of hers.
If you re familiar with her story, it s probably because of The Barretts Of Wimpole Street.
This 1930 play, which has been filmed three times, is an irresistible slice of melodrama about the romance between Elizabeth and the dashing poet Robert Browning a love affair which was opposed by her tyrannical father, who wanted Elizabeth all to himself. As the trailer for the 1957 version gasped, Behind the doors of a proud, respectable house surge the conflicts of dark, hidden passions!
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