Isa Blagden (1816–1873)

Isabella Jane Blagden, known as Isa, was probably born in Calcutta, India, the daughter of Thomas Bracken, an English banker, and an Indian mother. Very little is known of her early life. She probably attended Louisa Agassiz’s school for young ladies in London, a school favored by British diplomats and businessmen living in India. The head teacher's niece, Charlotte Agassiz (Brice), was her lifelong friend. Her first published work, a poem entitled “What is Sir Lytton Bulwer’s 'Zanoni',” appeared in The Metropolitan in 1842. She became a friend of Edward Bulwer-Lytton and he introduced her to many other writers and artists. In 1850, accompanied by Charlotte Agassiz, Isa went to Florence, Italy, and took a short lease on a villa near the city. Although she had not planned it, she spent the next 23 years living in Florence among the British expatriate community. She became a close friend of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning and their son Pen at Casa Guidi, who called her "dearest Isa." She made trips with or at the same time as the Browning family to London, Rome, Paris, Bagni di Luca, and Siena. Encouraged by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Isa began writing novels. The first, Agnes Tremorne, appeared in 1861. Her four subsequent books were The Cost of a Secret (1863), The Woman I Loved and the Woman Who Love Me (1865) Nora and Archibald Lee (1867), and The Crown of a Life (1869). Her unpublished poems were collected and issued posthumously in 1873 by Linda Mazini with a memoir by Alfred Austin. A volume of Robert Browning's letters to her entitled Dearest Isa was published in 1951. Florentine Friends: The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning to Isa Blagden, 1850–1861, was published in 2009. Isa also wrote essays and short stories for periodicals, beginning with a biographical essay on sculptor Félicie de Fauveau in the English Woman's Journal in 1858. Isa also hosted a weekly salon frequented by her circle of prominent independent and influential women, including Kate Field, Charlotte Cushman, Harriet Hosmer, Bessie Rayner Parkes, and Frances Power Cobbe.