Notes

Except for the prologue, which takes place in 1820 when Elizabeth is fourteen years old, the play spans the sixteen-year arc of the Brownings’ courtship and marriage from 1845 to1861.

At the beginning of Act I, Elizabeth and Robert are in their thirties and John Kenyon is in his fifties. Wilson has been Elizabeth’s maid since childhood.

The world of the play is defined by a single fluid set of intense Victorian clutter. Two items are ever-present and omnipresent. One is the tree that grew in the garden of Elizabeth’s childhood, which emerges from, and retreats into, the pastoral, landscaped wallpaper of the room. The other is her chaise, forever beckoning her to live out her life upon it.

Quotation marks are used to indicate that the characters’ words are coming from a poem, a letter, a book, a newspaper. Although these lines rely on the original material for their content, the words have been revised in places for the purposes of delivery and poetry.

With the exception of Elizabeth’s famous sonnet, “How Do I Love Thee?,” a few lines lifted from “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” and the early love letters, the rest of the prose and poetry in the play was written by the author.