- He was born in Camberwell, south London, the son of a Bank of England clerk and the daughter of a German shipowner. He had one sister, Sarianna.
- Young Robert hated school and left to be home educated by a tutor. His father had a library of six thousand books, which he was able to use as well. By the age of fourteen he was fluent in French, Greek, Italian and Latin. He went to university in London to study Greek, but it seems university wasn't to his taste either, and he dropped out after a year. He didn't want to get a job, either - his parents nagged him to get a job, but he stayed at home writing poetry full time until he was 34.
- He had written his first volume of poetry by the age of twelve. He couldn't find a publisher for it, though, and destroyed it.
- In 1833, he published his first poem, Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession. His aunt stumped up the money to publish it. It is a long poem composed in homage to Shelley, who Browning was a big fan of, and written in his style.
- He started writing letters to another poet who was six years older and more successful than he was at the time. Her name was Elizabeth Barrett. The correspondence blossomed into romance, but there was a problem - Elizabeth's father didn't want any of his children to get married. She had to leave her family to marry Browning, and her father disowned her. The couple moved to Italy where they lived until she died in 1861. Browning never remarried, although some historians think he was romantically involved with Louisa Caroline Stewart-Mackenzie, Lady Ashburton, and that she proposed to him, but he turned her down.
- Despite an intense dislike of public speaking, he is among the first people to have their recorded voice played after their death. At a gathering at a friend's house, he recorded himself on a phonograph reciting How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. He died eight months later and the recording was played on the first anniversary of his death. You can listen to the recording on Wikipedia's Robert Browning page.
- His parents were evangelicals, which meant he couldn't go to Oxford or Cambridge universities - only open to members of the Church of England at the time. Being a great admirer of Shelley, Browning himself became an atheist, although it's possible he became religious again after his marriage, thanks to the influence of his wife. Evidence that he regained his faith comes from some of his poems although some believe the views expressed in those poems were not necessarily those of the author.
- Elizabeth was a great believer in spiritualism and the paranormal - whether or not Robert found his Christian faith again or not, he drew the line at believing in spiritualism. It was one thing the couple disagreed about. He was persuaded, however, to attend a seance run by a popular Scottish medium, Daniel Dunglas Home. Home was a complete scammer, though, and did nothing to change Browning's mind. Home set up an illusion using his foot, which, he claimed, was the son the Brownings had lost in infancy. Only they had never lost a son. Browning grabbed the medium's foot and exposed the scam for everyone present to see. Even so, the medium continued with his career, and Elizabeth continued to believe in spiritualism - one fraud didn't discredit the experiences she had previously had with the supernatural.
- A Browning Society was formed to study his work while he was still alive. Browning had mixed feelings about it - the society hadn't asked his position or involved him in any way - but he had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that they helped promote his work.
- One of Browning's poems, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, was inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear, which had in turn been inspired by an old fairy tale. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came was a major influence on Stephen King, who based his Dark Tower series on it. The protagonist in King's books is also called Roland, and the characters Cuthbert and Giles also feature in the poem.
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