Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Letters to Mrs David Ogilvy 1849-1861 (1974)

This volume not only collects the 38 remaining letters which Browning wrote to Ogilvy, but also Ogilvy's biographical essay on Browning, a group of Ogilvy's poems which were mentioned in or covered the time of the letter-exchange, and a short excerpt from Mary Russell Mitford's recollections about Browning. The letters are effusive and classically 'bohemian' and 'upper middle chattering class' in the period before either of those terms really existed. My exposure to Browning is limited to a few poems, so her political leanings and fascination with children came as a surprise. Their children are a major talking point between the two women, and the portrait of Pen Browning in particular, with his delicacy and bright outspokenness, his strange clothes and very mixed Anglo-French-Italian vocabulary, is intriguing. These letters were almost all written from Italy, many from the famed Casa Guidi in Florence, and are bathed in sunlight and generally radiant with Browning's improved health as a result. Ogilvy's poems in Appendix B are really moving and strong pieces. We also get a sidelong view of Robert Browning and other literary and political figures of the time (Browning was an enthusiastic supporter of Louis Napoleon, Napoleon III) which lend more colour to an already full picture.