Robert Browning by Pamela Neville-Singleton

Robert Browning by Pamela Neville-Singleton

Robert Browning spent fifteen years married to a fellow poet, Elizabeth Barrett. It was a good marriage but Pamela Neville-Sington shows how their union proved a disaster for Browning's literary career. Robert was less well-known than Elizabeth when they married but he hoped he'd produce his best work with his wife and Muse by his side. However, although Elizabeth encouraged her husband's ambition, she became his Siren rather than Muse - disabling him with her song. Browning was forty-nine when Elizabeth died, and this new biography takes her death as its starting point. The central drama of Browning's life was the conflict between a need to put his marriage behind him (he had a young son, Pen, to bring up) and the overwhelming desire to cling to his wife's memory and preserve the literary myth of their marriage.While wrestling with this situation, Browning was drawn to three very different women - sensitive Julia Wedgwood, impetuous Lady Ashburton and the rich American Katherine Bronson. Pamela Neville-Sington's unique approach has produced an unusually insightful biography. Browning's life was one of love, loss, death and redemption, as well as a man's compelling struggle to overcome grief and begin his artistic life anew.

"Pamela Neville-Sington.. takes Barrett's posthumous influence on Browning as her starting point for this book. She writes well about the poets problems with Pen, torn as he is between the symbolic roles the boy took in his life as Elizabeth's most precious legacy and the vehicle of his own expectations... when the author focuses on the posthumous Barrett-Browning relationship she has interesting things to say, supported by her interpretation of the poems." THE LITERARY REVIEW "Some of the most vivid episodes in the book are those recounted in flashback - though that seems too crude a term for a technique in which one backward glance often leads on to another... her book [has] the quality of a superior Victorian novel." - JOHN GROSS SUNDAY TELEGRAPH "His lonely struggle to reorientate his life - and finally achieve critical and commercial success as a poet - is the subject of Pamela Neville-Sington's biography, which shows how ambivalent his memories of his wife were." FINANCIAL TIMES "Vivid and illuminating" SPECTATOR ""Robert Browning: A Life After Death has many appealing qualities: a fresh narrative method, shrewd observation of character, a clear and witty style; it is often enlightening about the poet's habits, his friends and family, his intellectual interests... the book has a clever and promising design... ingeniously constructed and enjoyable to read." - DANIEL KARLIN TLS "lively, engaging account" - Robyn Marsack THE HERALD "In this excellent new biography of Robert Browning, Pamela Neville Sington tells a familiar story in a fresh and original way... Skilfully and entertainingly written, the book sensibly relates Browning's life to his poetry. It is a persuasive narrative, compressed into a highly readable 300 pages. A Life after Death is the best popular Browning biography for the past 60 years. There is much in it for the scholar too." COUNTRY LIFE "Neville Sington explores the hidden drama and conflict of this "life after death" both subtly and movingly." - NICK RENNISON SUNDAY TIMES "One is grateful to Pamela Neville Sington for .. a fresh slant." THE TABLET "with great subtlety examines the limitations imposed on Robert's poetic imagination and achievement during the marriage." - ISABEL QUIGLY THE OLDIE

Educated at Harvard and Oxford Universities before receiving her doctorate from the Warburg Institute, London, Pamela Neville-Sington is the author of the highly acclaimed FANNY TROLLOPE: The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780297643968
ISBN 10	0297643967
Title	Robert Browning
Author	Pamela Neville-Singleton
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Orion Publishing Co
Year published	2004-06-10
Number of pages	360
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable