Aurora Leigh (The World's Classics) [Paperback]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Author), Kerry McSweeney (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1993 | Series: The World's Classics

This verse-novel is a detailed representation of the early-Victorian age. The social panorama extends from the slums of London, through the literary world, to the upper classes and a number of satirical portraits: an aunt with rigidly conventional notions of female education; Romney Leigh, the Christian socialist; Lord Howe, the amateur radical; sir Blaise Delorme, the ostentatious Roman Catholic; and the unscrupulous society beauty, Lady Waldemar. However, the dominant presence in the work is the narrator, Aurora Leigh herself. From early years in Italy and adolescence in the West country, to the vocational choices, creative struggles, and emotional entanglements of her early adult life, Aurora Leigh develops her ideas on love, art, God, the Woman Question, and society. This edition is critically edited and fuly annotated. It should be of interest to readers of Victorian poetry and students of 19th-century English literature and women's writing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Novel in blank verse by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, published in 1857. The first-person narrative, which comprises some 11,000 lines, tells of the heroine's childhood and youth in Italy and England, her self-education in her father's hidden library, and her successful pursuit of a literary career. Initially resisting a marriage proposal by the philanthropist Romney Leigh, Aurora later surrenders her independence and weds her faithful suitor, whose own idealism has also since been tempered by experience. Aurora's career, Romney's social theories, and a melodramatic subplot concerning forced prostitution elicit the author's vivid observations on the importance of poetry, the individual's responsibility to society, and the victimization of women. Although it was a great popular success, Aurora Leigh was not admired by critics. -- The Merriam-Webster Encylopedia of Literature

About the Author

Margaret Reynolds is Lecturer in English at the University of Birmingham.  She is the editor of the variorum Aurora Leigh (Ohio University Press, 1992), Erotica (Pandora and Ballantine, 1990), and The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories (1994). She is co-editor (with Angela Leighton) of Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology (Basil Blackwell, 1995). She is currently at work on Sappho’s Companions.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 406 pages
• Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr (T) (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192828754
• ISBN-13: 978-0192828750
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,108,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As If Jane Eyre Were Written by Shakespeare, October 28, 2005

By 

P. Schumacher (atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aurora Leigh (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback)

Having been brought up on the notion that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the slighter and less-talented adjunct poet of her husband Robert, I was pleased to find I was wrong.

She's terrific.

This is a brilliant work, full of dazzling poetry and insights.

It's loaded with allusions and references (I read the Penguin edition; and the notes there run for many, many pages--and these barely skim the surface), but it is remarkably accessible and fun.

This is a work full of wisdom and unusual perspectives. Luminous and grand and down-to-earth all at once. Imagine Jane Eyre written by Shakespeare.

It's an education in Victorian (upper-middle-class) England, and also the Victorian English infatuation with Italy. It's also a biting and incisive feminist portrait, full of rebellion and self-discovery.

I strongly recommend it to anyone who likes poetry, or Victorian novels.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing achievement, May 20, 2001

By 

Daniel Robinson (Lansdale, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aurora Leigh (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

E.B.B. set out to outstrip Milton and does so in an amazingly original way. Aurora Leigh is a novel in blank verse that is actually longer than Paradise Lost! She combines the genre expectations for a woman writer--the novel--with an audacious bid for poetic immortality. The book tells a good story but it also works as a formidable reminder to her contemporary poets that the novel is taking over and poets must make sure that they are writing in the spirit of the age.

1.0 out of 5 stars AWFUL copy of Aurora Leigh, October 14, 2011

By 

brenna - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the worst copy of a book I have ever seen. There are so many typos it is unreadable! Aurora Leigh is a poem in verse and this copy jumbles all the lines together and has no line numbers either. I had to buy another copy this one was so bad. I DO NOT recommend this book!