The Life of Robert Browning: A Critical Biography

Clyde Ryals′s masterful account explores Browning′s work from Pauline , his earliest published poem, to Asolando , his last volume, and is the first biographical study in fifty years to treat chronologically and at length the entire Browning corpus.

List of Illustrations. Preface. Abbreviations. 1. Growing up in Camberwell. 2. Into the World. 3. Taking Stock: Sordello. 4. Bells and Pomegranates. 5. Courtship and the Early Years of Marriage. 6. At Home and Abroad, 1850–54. 7. Men and Women. 8. The Last Years Together. 9. In London Again. 10. The Ring and the Book. 11. Memory and Desire. 12. Redefining Poetry. 13. Fame is the Spur. 14. An Idyllic Interlude. 15. Looking Backwards and Forwards: The Parleyings. 16. Death in Venice and Burial in London. Epilogue. Notes. Selected Bibliography. Index.

The author is Professor of English at Duke University. He has written many books on Victorian literature, including Browning′s Later Poetry 1871–1889 (1975), Becoming Browning: The Poems and Plays of Robert Browning 1833–1846 (1983), and A World of Possibilities: (Romantic Irony in Victorian Literature (1900) . He is editor of The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Walsh Carlyle (1970– ).

"The best introduction to the entirety of Browning′s career. The most significant aspects of life, writing, theme, development, contemporary reception, and 20th–century criticism are presented with great clarity and efficiency. Ryals′s mastery of his subject is unrivaled." Choice. "Only a handful of scholars could have written this book, and it is surely now the best introduction to the entirely of Browning′s career... Ryals′s mastery of his subject is... unrivalled... to be recommended as the best first book to read on Browning." Choice "This biography, more successfully than any that has preceded it, achieves a fine balance between its sensitive commentary on the poet′s life and the poet′s art, and it further illuminates these subjects by locating them in a rich and wide–ranging cultural and historical context." Nineteenth–Century Literature. "... a thoroughly admirable contribution – an introduction for the general reader, at a modest price, of the corpus fo Browning, described and summarized and commented upon in such a way as to provoke reading of the texts to verify the riches the critic announces he has found" John Stasny, Victorian Poetry . "Clyde de L. Ryals has published two distinguished studies of Browning′s works, and his knowledge of the field is second to none. ... Eminently readable, Ryal′s study covers a huge amount of ground, offeringclear and reliable summaries of the poet′s works and days. This kind of book is obviously much more useful to the current generation of students than the earlier handbooks compiled by Alexandra Orr and William." Victorian Studies