Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born March 6, 1806 in Durham England-- the first of the Barretts to be born in their home land in over two hundred years (Sonnets from the Portuguese, Illuminated Xi). Her father's family had been English sugar plantation owners in Jamaica, and with the fortune they made on the backs of slaves, her father, Edward Barrett Moulton, was able to buy his family a 500 acre estate in a beautiful and isolated part of England in 1809: Hope End in Herfordshire, the border country with Wales Full of childhood fancy and economic privilege, Elizabeth would spend time riding her pony, producing theatrical productions with her 11 brothers and sisters, and, of course, reading and writing poetry.

A rare pictue of Hope End before it was demolished in 1872.

She was truly a child prodigy, having read parts of Shakespeare's plays, Pope's Homeric translations, and Milton's Paradise Lost by age ten. By the age of twelve, she had written her own epic poem titled, "Pope's Homer done over again, or rather undone." During her teen years she taught herself to read Greek, Latin and Italian and read the principal Greek and Latin authors and Dante's Inferno . She also taught herself enough Hebrew to be able to read the Old Testament from beginning to end. Aside from her love of the classics and the Biblical canon, she was interested in human rights and admired writers such as Paine, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft.

Oil painting of Edward, Henrietta, and Elizabeth Barrett (notice that she is holding a scroll)

She would later reflect on how her childhood memories influenced her poetry:

...the early fancy turned into a will, and remained with me-- and from that day to this, poetry has been a distinct object...to read, think, and live for. (qtd. in The Hope End Years , 15)

At the age of six (1815), her father affectionately named her "the Poet Laureate of Hope End," and gave her a ten-shilling note for writing a poem on Virtue. The title greatly pleased her and she would later state: "I received more pleasure from the word Poet than from the ten-shilling note" ( Autobiographical Essays , 349). She would also experience the satisfaction of writing and publishing her first poems: "The Battle of Marathon" (1818 c.); "The Rose and Zephyr," (her first published work which appeared in the Literary Gazette in 1825), and An Essay on Mind (1826).

However, at the age of 21 (1830), she was diagnosed with a disease that would keep her ill for the rest of her life, and at age 22, her mother unexpectedly passed away. Then, in 1832, her father's financial losses forced the family to move out of Hope End and finally settle at 50 Wimpole Street in London.