It’s the birthday of poet Robert Browning (1812-1889), known for his brilliant dramatic monologues and for marrying Elizabeth Barrett Browning on the sly and running off with her to Italy, like you do.

Browning was born in Camberwell, England. His father was a clerk in the Bank of England but also collected rare books, more than 6,000 of them, and was scarily well-read. Browning was precocious and wrote his first volume of poetry at the age of 12, and around that time was so inspired by the work of Percy Bysshe Shelley that he decided he too was a vegetarian and an atheist. (I’m just betting his parents rolled their eyes.) He then wrote no poetry for seven years, went off to the University of London in 1828, and almost immediately left in order to study at his own pace. Given that he’d learned Latin, Greek, and French by the age of 14, his pace was probably breakneck. Yet later in life his poetry was sometimes criticized for its obscurity, which was blamed on the unevenness of his education. Stay in school, people.

In 1933 he published Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession, which received mixed reviews, including the accusation of “intense and morbid self-consciousness.” This may be why Browning never again revealed his own emotions through his poetry. His 1840 poem “Sordello” bombed. He also wrote a number of plays in verse, and they too largely bombed. But instead of considering a career change, he continued to perfect techniques of dramatic monologue, which eventually were a huge influence on poets of the twentieth century.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Barrett Browning had praised him in her Poems (1844), he wrote to thank her, they eventually met, and love ensued. (Cue songbirds.) They continued corresponding—this was all without smart phones, remember, so we’re talking snail mail—and married secretly in 1846 in defiance of EBB’s jealous and domineering father, and a week later went off to Italy. They were married for about 15 years, had one son nicknamed Pen, and argued a lot about politics, parenting, and EBB’s interest in spiritualism. Browning wrote hardly any poetry during these years. In 1861, EBB died in Browning’s arms, and there’s an interesting little article in The Guardian speculating on whether he offed her, right here.

Browning published a volume of poetry, Dramatis Personae, in 1864, and his masterpiece, The Ring and the Book, in 1868-69, about a murder trial in Rome in 1698, and at this point everyone agreed he was officially Great. He went on to write a good deal more poetry, receive many honors, and almost remarry twice. Finally he caught a cold and died. (Yes! That can happen! So when told to have some sense and put on a jacket, do not roll your eyes at ME, young man.)

Be properly and warmly attired on this slightly chilly Monday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.