Uploaded September 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,' Elizabeth Barrett Browning famously wrote, shortly before defying her family by running away to Italy with Robert Browning. But behind the romance of her extraordinary life stands a thoroughly modern figure, who remains an electrifying study in self-invention. Elizabeth was born in 1806, a time when women could neither attend university nor vote, and yet she achieved lasting literary fame. She remains Britain's greatest woman poet, whose work has inspired writers from Emily Dickinson to George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. This vividly written biography, the first full study for over thirty years, incorporates recent archival discoveries to reveal the woman herself: a literary giant and a high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery who believed herself to be of mixed heritage; and a writer who defied chronic illness and long-term disability to change the course of cultural history.
About the author: Fiona Sampson is a leading poet and writer, published in thirty-eight languages. A broadcaster, critic and literary translator, she was editor of Poetry Review 2005–12 and is Emeritus Professor, University of Roehampton. Sampson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Wordsworth Trust and a Trustee of the Royal Literary Fund; her honours include an MBE for services to literature, the Newdigate Prize, Cholmondeley Award, Hawthornden Fellowship, and multiple awards from the Arts Councils of England and Wales, Society of Authors, Poetry Book Society and Arts and Humanities Research Council.
'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,' Elizabeth Barrett Browning famously wrote, shortly before defying her family by running away to Italy with Robert Browning. But behind the romance of her extraordinary life stands a thoroughly modern figure, who remains an electrifying study in self-invention. Elizabeth was born in 1806, a time when women could neither attend university nor vote, and yet she achieved lasting literary fame. She remains Britain's greatest woman poet, whose work has inspired writers from Emily Dickinson to George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. This vividly written biography, the first full study for over thirty years, incorporates recent archival discoveries to reveal the woman herself: a literary giant and a high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery who believed herself to be of mixed heritage; and a writer who defied chronic illness and long-term disability to change the course of cultural history.
About the author: Fiona Sampson is a leading poet and writer, published in thirty-eight languages. A broadcaster, critic and literary translator, she was editor of Poetry Review 2005–12 and is Emeritus Professor, University of Roehampton. Sampson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Wordsworth Trust and a Trustee of the Royal Literary Fund; her honours include an MBE for services to literature, the Newdigate Prize, Cholmondeley Award, Hawthornden Fellowship, and multiple awards from the Arts Councils of England and Wales, Society of Authors, Poetry Book Society and Arts and Humanities Research Council.
![Joanna Nadin || The Worst Class in the World [AGES 5-8]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CXaChHjpguk/mqdefault.jpg "Joanna Nadin || The Worst Class in the World [AGES 5-8]
According to Miss Bottomley-Blunt, 4B is the worst class in the world, but Stanley and Manjit didnt mean to make their whole class sick, or for Manjits dog to eat their teacher’s shoes, or for the rat to escape. These things just seem to happen, even when they have a foolproof plan. They might be the worst class in the world, but where else would you want to be?
Join Joanna Nadin as she talks to Vivian French about the hilarious adventures in her new laugh-out-loud series.
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You or your teacher can send questions before or during the show for a special Q&A at the end. Submit to questions@wigtownbookfestival.com.")
