Not Death, But Love: The Strange, Supernatural Story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Deeply researched and strikingly illustrated in Victorian style, Not Death, But Love puts an eerie, romantic twist on the true story of the poet who wrote the iconic Sonnet 43, which famously begins “How do I love thee?Let me count the ways.” An invalid since childhood, poet Elizabeth Barrett is famous throughout Victorian England, despite a hermit-like existence in the household of her tyrannical father.Opium makes the pain of her mysterious illness more bearable, but she lives in constant expectation of death.To her surprise, she instead finds love with dashing fellow poet Robert Browning, who whisks her away to freedom in Florence, Italy.Captivated by her new home and the revolutionary spirit of the Italian Risorgimento, Elizabeth basks in the glow of a happy marriage and reinvigorated health.Haunted by lingering griefs, however, Elizabeth is drawn into a shadowy world of séances and mediums as the supernatural craze known as spiritualism spreads from America to Europe.On a visit to