Publisher's Synopsis
'A Superb Classic'
The last revival here has been Mr. Browning's tragedy of A Blot on the 'Scutcheon, which, it will be remembered, was produced at Drury-lane, in the season of 1843, with but indifferent success, although it was strongly cast, and all the accessories were in the most perfect keeping.
A Blot in the Scutcheon
A Tragedy by Robert Browning
Classic Plays - Brand New Edition
Robert Browning (7 May 1812 - 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.
Robert Browning was born in Camberwell (a district now forming part of the borough of Southwark in South London, England), the only son of Sarah Anna (née Wiedemann) and Robert Browning. His father was a well-paid clerk for the Bank of England, earning about £150 per year. Browning's paternal grandfather was a wealthy slave owner in Saint Kitts, West Indies, but Browning's father was an abolitionist. Browning's father had been sent to the West Indies to work on a sugar plantation, but revolted by the slavery there, he returned to England. Browning's mother was a daughter of a German shipowner who had settled in Dundee, and his Scottish wife. Browning had one sister, Sarianna. Browning's paternal grandmother, Margaret Tittle, who had inherited a plantation in St Kitts, was rumoured within the family to have had some Jamaican mixed race ancestry. Author Julia Markus suggests St Kitts rather than Jamaica. There is little evidence to support this rumour, and it seems to be merely an anecdotal family story. Robert's father, a literary collector, amassed a library of around 6,000 books, many of them rare. Thus, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources. His mother, to whom he was very close, was a devout nonconformist and a talented musician. His younger sister, Sarianna, also gifted, became her brother's companion in his later years, after the death of his wife in 1861. His father encouraged his children's interest in literature and the arts.
