Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are without parallel in the nineteenth century: celebrated poets, they became equally famous for their marriage. Still popular more than a century after their deaths, their poetry vividly reflects the unique nature of their relationship.<br><br>This collection presents the Brownings&#8217; work in the context of their lives: the early years and their initial friendship, their courtship and marriage, the fifteen happy years they spent living in Italy until Elizabeth&#8217;s death. Whether in short poems such as Elizabeth&#8217;s &#8220;Hector in the Garden&#8221; and Robert&#8217;s &#8220;Natural Magic,&#8221; or in extracts from longer works such as <i>Aurora Leigh</i> and <i>Pauline</i>, the great themes they shared are all represented: love, marriage, illicit passion, England and Italy, childhood, religion, poetry, and nature. Elizabeth&#8217;s famous <i>Sonnets from the Portuguese, </i>based on their love affair, is included in its entirety. <br><br>The poems are augmented with a generous selection of the marvelous letters the Brownings wrote to each other.