10 h 3 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the work you love seems useless to the person who wants to change the world?
Aurora Leigh wants to write great poetry and earn her living by it. Her cousin Romney wants to ease the suffering of the poor. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s novel in blank verse, their ambitions collide with love, money and expectations about a woman’s place. Aurora tells her own story, from childhood in Italy to the struggle for an independent life.
An English aunt hopes to see Aurora suitably married. Romney questions the value of art while people starve. Marian Erle, a poor seamstress with a harsh childhood, binds the cousins’ lives together. Through arguments, landscapes and the tender comedy of Aurora’s ivy poet’s crown, the poem asks what work, love and social duty demand—and whether any can stand alone.
What you’ll discover
- A poet claims her life Follow Aurora as she seeks a living through writing, rather than a place as someone’s assistant.
- Art meets social duty Enter a fierce argument where poetry and reform challenge each other’s claims to matter.
- An ivy crown Meet Aurora wearing her poet’s crown in a scene both gentle and quietly comic.
- Lives divided by class Encounter Marian Erle, whose gentleness and poverty bring the cousins’ ideals into sharper focus.
- A story carried by verse Experience love, scandal and travel through Aurora’s direct voice and the movement of blank verse.
Who will love it
For readers who love stories in verse, care about the lives of women writers, or enjoy debates about art and social duty in the Victorian age.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A childhood between Italy and England
- Exile in her aunt's English house
- Romney proposes and Aurora refuses
- A woman poet makes her own living
- Marian Erle and the plan to marry across class
- Lady Waldemar and the wedding day
- Paris, Italy and the search for home
- What the poem argues about art, work and women
- How the poem is told and why it feels modern
Who’s who
- Aurora LeighThe poet and narrator, born in Italy to an English father, who wants to live by her art and refuses to be anyone's assistant.
- Romney LeighHer cousin and the heir of Leigh Hall, a serious reformer who wants to heal the sufferings of the poor.
- Marian ErleA poor seamstress of great gentleness, hurt by a harsh childhood, whose life becomes bound to both cousins.
- Lady WaldemarA rich, clever woman of high society who is drawn to Romney and works behind the scenes to shape events.
- Aurora's auntHer father's sister, a strict English spinster who raises Aurora and hopes to see her settled in a suitable marriage.
- Aurora's fatherAn English scholar living in Florence who raises his daughter among books and hills until his early death.
Formats and delivery
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- Audiobook
- 10 h 3 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Aurora Leigh
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning · 1856
Aurora wants to live by her poetry, while her cousin Romney calls her toward a life devoted to the poor.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
A childhood between Italy and England
Aurora Leigh begins by telling her own story, and she says at once that she is writing it for herself. She is born in Florence. Her father is an English scholar and her mother is Italian. Her mother dies when Aurora is only four years old, and the child keeps only a faint memory of her face.
After that, her father raises her alone. He is a quiet, bookish man, and he does not shut her away from the life of the household or from the hills around Florence. She grows up speaking Italian and learning from the land as well as from the page. The Italian countryside is her first teacher of what beauty is.
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What is Aurora Leigh about?
It follows Aurora, a young poet born in Italy and raised in England, as she refuses a marriage proposal, makes her living by writing, and becomes bound up with her cousin Romney and a poor girl, Marian Erle.
Is Aurora Leigh a novel or a poem?
It is both. It is a narrative poem in nine books, written in blank verse, but it has a plot, characters and social detail like a Victorian novel, which is why it is called a verse novel.
When was Aurora Leigh written and published?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote it in Italy and published it in 1856. It is a work of fiction, though Aurora shares some of the author's views about poetry, women and the duties of a writer.
The author
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
1806–1861 · English poet
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an English poet born in County Durham in 1806. She lived in England before moving to Italy with her husband, the poet Robert Browning, in 1846. She published Sonnets from the Portuguese in 1850 and Aurora Leigh in 1856. She died in Florence in 1861.
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