Two-Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

· Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Petrea Burchard
Audiobook
10 hr 27 min
Unabridged
Eligible
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More
Want a 1 hr 3 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline. 
Add

About this audiobook

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." With these words, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has come down to us as a romantic heroine, a recluse controlled by a domineering father and often overshadowed by her husband, Robert Browning. But behind the melodrama lies a thoroughly modern figure whose extraordinary life is an electrifying study in self-invention. Born in 1806, Barrett Browning lived in an age when women could not attend a university, own property after marriage, or vote. And yet she seized control of her private income, defied chronic illness and disability, became an advocate for the revolutionary Italy to which she eloped, and changed the course of cultural history. Her late-in-life verse novel masterpiece, Aurora Leigh, reveals both the brilliance and originality of her mind, as well as the challenges of being a woman writer in the Victorian era. A feminist icon, high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery, and international literary superstar, Barrett Browning inspired writers as diverse as Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf. Two-Way Mirror is the first biography of Barrett Browning in more than three decades. With unique access to the poet's abundant correspondence, Fiona Sampson holds up a mirror to the woman, her art, and the art of biography itself.

About the author

Fiona Sampson is the author of twenty-eight books of poetry and nonfiction, including the critically acclaimed In Search of Mary Shelley. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Wordsworth Trust, and English Association, she is professor emerita of the University of Roehampton and lives on the Welsh borders.

Petrea Burchard is an actor, audiobook narrator, and writer. Her stage experience covers everything from Second City comedy to Shakespeare, and her resume includes television, film, and voice-over work. When she's not narrating audiobooks in her Los Angeles home studio, she loves to travel.

Rate this audiobook

Tell us what you think.

Listening information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.