Aurora Leigh is a verse novel by Elizabeth Barrett Browning about a young poet striving for artistic independence. Through her relationship with her cousin Romney Leigh, it explores themes of love, social justice, and women's creative power. It is worth listening to for its rich language and insightful portrayal of the Victorian era.
For teachers and schools: paste the code into your site or blog.
Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
The Fourth Edition of ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING’S POEMS. With numerous Additions. Three Vols. Foolscap 8vo. MEN AND WOMEN. BY ROBERT BROWNING. Two Vols. Foolscap 8vo. 12s. A New Edition of ROBERT BROWNING’S POEMS. Two Vols. Foolscap 8vo. 16s. ALSO, CHRISTMAS-EVE AND EASTER-DAY. A POEM. Foolscap 8vo. 6s. CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. AURORA LEIGH.
BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1857. LONDON: BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
DEDICATION TO
JOHN KENYON, ESQ.
Tƒŧ words ‘cousin’ and ‘friend’ are constantly recurring in this poem, the last pages of which have been finished under the hospitality of your roof, my own dearest cousin and friend;—cousin and friend, in a sense of less equality and greater disinterestedness than ‘Romney’’s.
Ending, therefore, and preparing once more to quit England, I venture to leave in your hands this book, the most mature of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and
Art have entered: that as, through my various efforts in literature and steps in life, you have believed in me, borne with me, and been generous to me, far beyond the common uses of mere relationship or sympathy of mind, so you may kindly accept, in sight of the public, this poor sign of esteem, gratitude, and affection, from your unforgetting
Readnara
