Rudolf Besier's theatrical production, "The Barrett's of Wimpole Street," was first performed on February 9, 1931. The production was meant to be comedic; its theme revolved around EBB's life in London as an invalid, with a controlling father who did not allow his children to marry, and EBB's falling in love with Robert Browning. The play was later turned into a dramatic movie with the same title, released January 16, 1957 by MGM.

Biographically, the story-line of the theater production is accurate, but EBB's life during her years in London was anything but comedic. Her frail health worsened in the crowded and polluted city of London, and she suffered the loss of her brother and later, the loss of her father's love. On the other hand, "the invalid of Wimpole street," with no defined domestic role, was free to spend endless hours in her room reading, writing, and thinking; and it was in her room that she composed the poems that caught the eye and heart of Robert Browning-- the man who would help the poet fly away from her physical and emotional confinement.

EBB published what was considered her first volume of "mature" poetry-- The Seraphim and Other Poems-- in 1838. In the same year, the doctor recommended she spend the winter in a climate warmer than London. Her father, doubting the doctor's orders, finally consented and sent her and her favorite brother, Edward, (whom she affectionately called "Bro") to Torquay on the Devonshire coast in southwest England. Tragically, Edward drowned while sailing with some friends. Of her sorrow and guilt at the loss of "Bro" she wrote a friend:

[I strive to accept the death] of the partner of my pleasures of my literary toils. If to save him from anxiety... any effort of mine could suffice... Heaven knows my heart that I would unhesitatingly buy his happiness with my own misery!
(Autobiographical Essays, 354).