ABL Browning Library Collection

The rare Browning Library Collection consists primarily of books from the personal libraries of Robert and/or Elizabeth Barrett Browning and their immediate families and contains the most important items in the larger Armstrong Browning Library Collection. The Library's holdings include over 700 of the 2519 items recorded under Section A, The Brownings' Library in The Browning Collections; A Reconstruction With Other Memorabilia (1984) by Kelley and Coley, nearly 400 book titles and approximately 300 periodical issues or articles. In addition to the books which actually belonged to the poets and their immediate families, the library also has a growing number of copies of the same editions of the books which the poets owned, or Browning Library Copies.

Examples of the remarkable holdings in the Browning Library Collection are:

  • Nathaniel Wanley's Wonders of the Little World, or A General and Complete History of Man (1667) which was inscribed to Robert Browning from his father in 1825 and contains the manuscript of "The Cardinal and the Dog" written in a margin

  • An eleven-volume set of classics housed in a leather case which Robert Browning carried when traveling, each volume inscribed by Browning

  • Robert Browning's copy of Paracelsus' Opera Omnia (1658), inscribed to him by his friend Joseph Milsand

  • The History and Lives of Twenty Kings of England [1615] with the signatures of five generations of Brownings

  • A 1758 edition of Epictetus' Manuale, Cebetis Thebani Tabula, Prodici Hercules, et Theophrasti Characteres Ethici inscribed by "E B Barrett" in 1831 and containing her annotations

  • Thomas Moore's Letters And Journals Of Lord Byron: With Notices Of His Life (1830), a gift to Elizabeth Barrett from Mrs. James (Julia) Martin, a friend from her girlhood, inscribed by Elizabeth in 1831 and containing a note by Robert Browning dated 1881


A complete listing of the books belonging to the Brownings or their immediate families in the Browning Library Collection may be seen by searching BearCat, Baylor University Libraries' Online Catalog. From the BearCat menu, choose a Subject Heading Search and enter Browning Library. A full bibliographic record may be seen for each entry by typing the corresponding number of the entry.