Renowned English poet Robert Browning was born in 1812 in the London suburb of Camberwell. Finding school irritating and uninteresting, Browning left formal institutional learning behind and was educated at home by a tutor. He also utilized his father's six thousand volume personal library. By the time he was twelve, he had written his first volume of poetry, though the manuscript does not survive.
The course of Browning's writing career is an interesting one. Initially, his poems and dramatic monologues were well received; Charles Dickens even offered him praise for his monologue, Paracelsus. But, as he continued writing and honing his style, many readers and critics believed his poems were too obscure in reference and illusion. It was not until his collection Men and Women (1855) that he began to see a more positive response to his work. In 1868, he published his long poem comprised of dramatic monologues, The Ring and the Book. This book was critically acclaimed and ushered in a new era of respect and commercial success for Browning. He died in 1889 and is buried in Westminster Abbey in Poet's Corner, near Alfred Lord Tennyson. Here are five interesting facts you might now know about this influential poet.