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This sturdy, readable biography is a largely straightforward, largely admiring retelling of the familiar life story: the happy, sheltered, father-educated childhood, which led to ""the extraordinary consistency of Browning's beliefs throughout life""; the ambitious beginnings, early failures; the infatuation with the theater; his bouts of (perhaps psychosomatic) trigeminal neuralgia; the success of "Pippa Passes"; the courtship of invalid Elizabeth Barrett, followed by the marriage and move to Italy; friendships, from the literary to the social/eccentric; and, with Elizabeth's fatally failing health, the beginnings of Browning's aggressive socializing--flirtations, hobbies, country houses. All the important poetry is also discussed, in reasonable, clear, unremarkable terms. The book is a competent, one-volume treatment, free of much old-fashioned Browning-bio baggage.