Beautiful as Aphrodite, stronger than Hercules, wise as Athenafor more than 75 years, Wonder Woman has inspired and empowered generations of fans with her strength and guidance. This gorgeous collection of quotes from throughout Wonder Woman's iconic history in comics, film, and TV, fully illustrated by a wide range of classic and modern visuals, showcases her wisdom on fighting systems of evil, defying expectations in Man's World, standing up for peace and love, and embodying the true meaning of strength. The Wisdom of Wonder Woman is an uplifting and powerful book for wonder women everywhere.WONDER WOMAN and all related characters and elements ? & ? DC Comics. (s19)

From LAIKA, the studio behind the hit film Coraline, comes another marvel of stop-motion animation and creative storytelling. For ParaNorman, LAIKA's team of artists and animators built and brought to life a miniature town, a horde of zombies, and a quirky cast of characters to tell a tale of a boy with spooky talents who must save his hometown from a centuries-old curse. Featuring the amazing and detailed artwork that went into the film's creationfrom character sketches and concept art to puppets, textiles, set dressing, and 3-D printed facial modelsThe Art and Making of ParaNorman goes behind the scenes to explore the exacting, exciting steps that are achieved frame by frame in this newest LAIKA masterpiece.

From a simple, brilliant premiseto create comics from the weirdest and funniest tweets aroundartist Mike Rosenthal (@VectorBelly) has crafted a hilariously surreal world that has attracted over a million followers to his blog Twitter: The Comic. Each carefully curated tweet delivers concentrated humor in the language of the Internet, reproduced in the comics with typos and all. As envisioned by Rosenthal, each comes to life through a bizarrely recognizable cast of bassoon-playing cops, sarcastic teens, bear MDs, clueless dads, potential insect overlords, and more. Featuring more than 120 of these comics, including dozens unique to this book, Twitter: The Comic (The Book) is a dementedly funny vision of our strange online age.

Ninjas are awesomestealthy, cunning experts of infiltration and close combat. But like us all, they must sometimes grapple with the small but significant problems of everyday life. For instance, ninjas have issues with squirrels. They also have trouble with chimneys, pigeons, blow darts, and mimes. They really like hiding, going undercover, and piatas, but have MAJOR issues with samurai, giant fighting robots, and unicorns. Through it all, they secretly long for just one thing. Author of the breakout hit Zombies Hate Stuff, Greg Stones turns his popular, playfully absurd illustration style to the badass but surprisingly issue-fraught world of ninjas, detailing their inner lives and mortal combat with a subversive sense of the absurd.

Susan Keating Glaspell was born on July 1st, 1876 in Davenport.Glaspell, a precocious child was an active student at Davenport High School where she took an advanced course of study. By age eighteen she was earning a regular salary at the local newspaper as a journalist, and by twenty she was the author of a weekly 'Society' column.At twenty-one Glaspell enrolled at Drake University. A philosophy major, she also excelled in debate competitions, and represented Drake at the state tournament in her senior year.The day after her graduation, Glaspell again worked as a reporter, still a rare position for a woman. She was assigned to cover the state legislature and murder cases.At twenty-four, after covering the conviction of a woman accused of murdering her abusive husband, Glaspell abruptly resigned and moved back to Davenport, and with it, a hoped for career writing fiction.Her stories were published by many periodicals, including Harper's and Munsey's.Moving to Chicago she wrote her first novel, The Glory of the Conquered, in 1909. It was a best-seller.As was Glaspell's second novel, The Visioning, published in 1911 and her third, Fidelity in 1915. Each novel also received glowing reviews.With her husband Glaspell founded the Provincetown Playhouse devoted to plays that were more able to reflect contemporary American issues. Her first play, Trifles (1916), was based on the murder trial she covered as a young reporter in Des Moines. She wrote twelve groundbreaking plays over seven years for the company. By 1918 Glaspell was considered one of America's most significant new playwrights.However, the impact and critical success of Glaspell's theatre work did not unfortunately make financial sense. Therefore she continued to submit short stories in order to support her and her husband during their years with the theater.In 1931 she wrote the excellent play, Alison's House, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize.In 1936 Glaspell moved to Chicago as the Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project. When that finished she returned to Cape Cod using the Mid-West experience in her last three novels which were increasingly focused on the region, on family life, and on theistic questions; The Morning is Near Us (1939), Norma Ashe (1942), and Judd Rankin's Daughter (1945).Susan Keating Glaspell died of viral pneumonia in Provincetown on July 28, 1948.

Henrik Ibsen (20th March, 1828 - 23rd May, 1906) is often referred to as the father of realism and ranked just below Shakespeare as Europe's greatest ever playwright especially as his plays are performed most frequently throughout the world after Shakespeare's. He was Norwegian and although set his plays in Norway, he wrote them in Danish and lived most of his professional life in Italy and Germany. His affect on the theatre is still evident today and shapes the distinction of plays being art as opposed to entertainment since he broke down all previous traditions and explored issues, developed characterisation, revealed uncomfortable truths, challenged assumptions and brokedown facades in ourselves as well as society. These factors are clearly demonstrated in Lady Inger of Ostrat, a historical play set in a period in history when Norway was struggling to retain independence and Norwegian literature was virtually non existent. Ibsen describes the era as "e;Four Hundred Years of Darkness"e; and his setting Lady Inger at this time was very much part of the patriotic Romantic Nationalism movement of the time, of which he was its most famous exponent. This play is a fine example of both the movement's intent, to reintroduce the near forgotten past of the previous four centuries providing a richer Norwegian culture, as well as Ibsen's poetic style that captures the scan and spirit of old Scandinavian songs and ballads so skilfully .

If ever a writer needed an introduction Arthur Conan Doyle would not be considered that man. After all, Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the foremost literary detective of any age. Add to this canon his stories of science fiction and his poems, his historical novels, his plays, his political campaigning, his efforts in establishing a Court of Appeal and there is little room for anything else. Except he was also an exceptional writer of short stories of the horrific and macabre. Something very different from what you might expect. Born in Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. From 1876 - 1881 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh following which he was employed as a doctor on the Greenland whaler Hope of Peterhead in 1880 and, after his graduation, as a ship's surgeon on the SS Mayumba during a voyage to the West African coast in 1881. Arriving in Portsmouth in June of that year with less than GBP10 (GBP700 today) to his name, he set up a medical practice at 1 Bush Villas in Elm Grove, Southsea. The practice was initially not very successful. While waiting for patients, Conan Doyle again began writing stories and composed his first novel The Mystery of Cloomber. Although he continued to study and practice medicine his career was now firmly set as a writer. And thereafter great works continued to pour out of him.

The English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I of England (James VI of Scotland, 1567-1625; in England he reigned from 1603).Beaumont & Fletcher began to collaborate as writers soon after they met. After notable failures of their solo works their first joint effort, Philaster, was a success and tragicomedy was the genre they explored and built upon. There would be many further successes to follow.There is an account that at the time the two men shared everything. They lived together in a house on the Bankside in Southwark, "e;they also lived together in Bankside, sharing clothes and having one wench in the house between them."e; Or as another account puts it "e;sharing everything in the closest intimacy."e;Whatever the truth of this they were now recognised as perhaps the best writing team of their generation, so much so, that their joint names was applied to all the works in which either, or both, had a pen including those with Philip Massinger, James Shirley and Nathan Field.The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 contained 35 plays; 53 plays were included in the second folio in 1679. Other works bring the total plays in the canon to about 55. However there appears here to have been some duplicity on the account of the publishers who seemed to attribute so many to the team. It is now thought that the work between solely by Beaumont and Fletcher amounts to approximately 15 plays, though of course further works by them were re-worked by others and the originals lost.After Beaumont's early death in 1616 Fletcher continued to write and, at his height was, by many standards, the equal of Shakespeare in popularity until his own death in 1625.

Publius Terentius Afer is better known to us as the Roman playwright, Terence.Much of his life, especially the early part, is either unknown or has conflicting sources and accounts.His birth date is said to be either 185 BC or a decade earlier: 195 BC. His place of birth is variously listed as in, or, near Carthage, or, in Greek Italy to a woman taken to Carthage as a slave. It is suggested that he lived in the territory of the Libyan tribe that the Romans called Afri, near Carthage, before being brought to Rome as a slave. Probability suggests that it was there, in North Africa, several decades after the destruction of Carthage by the Romans in 146 BC, at the end of the Punic Wars, that Terence spent his early years.One reliable fact is that he was sold to P. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, who had him educated and, impressed by his literary talents, freed him.These writing talents were to ensure his legacy as a playwright down through the millennia. His comedies, partially adapted from Greek plays of the late phases of Attic Comedy, were performed for the first time around 170-160 BC. All six of the plays he has known to have written have survived.Indeed, thanks to his simple conversational Latin, which was both entertaining and direct, Terence's works were heavily used by monasteries and convents during the Middle Ages and The Renaissance. Scribes often learned Latin through the copious copying of Terence's texts. Priests and nuns often learned to speak Latin through re-enactment of Terence's plays. Although his plays often dealt with pagan material, the quality and distinction of his language promoted the copying and preserving of his text by the church. This preservation enabled his work to influence a wide spectrum of later Western drama.When he was 25 (or 35 depending on which year of birth you ascribe too), Terence travelled to Greece but never returned. It has long been assumed that he died at some point during the journey.Of his own family nothing is known, except that he fathered a daughter and left a small but valuable estate just outside Rome.His most famous quotation reads: "e;Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto"e;, or "e;I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me."e;

Euripides is rightly lauded as one of the great dramatists of all time. In his lifetime, he wrote over 90 plays and although only 18 have survived they reveal the scope and reach of his genius. Euripides is identified with many theatrical innovations that have influenced drama all the way down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. As would be expected from a life lived 2,500 years ago, details of it are few and far between. Accounts of his life, written down the ages, do exist but whether much is reliable or surmised is open to debate. Most accounts agree that he was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, to mother Cleito and father Mnesarchus, a retailer who lived in a village near Athens. Upon the receipt of an oracle saying that his son was fated to win "e;crowns of victory"e;, Mnesarchus insisted that the boy should train for a career in athletics. However, what is clear is that athletics was not to be the way to win crowns of victory. Euripides had been lucky enough to have been born in the era as the other two masters of Greek Tragedy; Sophocles and schylus. It was in their footsteps that he was destined to follow. His first play was performed some thirteen years after the first of Socrates plays and a mere three years after schylus had written his classic The Oristria. Theatre was becoming a very important part of the Greek culture. The Dionysia, held annually, was the most important festival of theatre and second only to the fore-runner of the Olympic games, the Panathenia, held every four years, in appeal. Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia, in 455 BC, one year after the death of schylus, and, incredibly, it was not until 441 BC that he won first prize. His final competition in Athens was in 408 BC. The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were performed after his death in 405 BC and first prize was awarded posthumously. Altogether his plays won first prize only five times. Euripides was also a great lyric poet. In Medea, for example, he composed for his city, Athens, "e;the noblest of her songs of praise"e;. His lyric skills however are not just confined to individual poems: "e;A play of Euripides is a musical whole....one song echoes motifs from the preceding song, while introducing new ones."e; Much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didn't live to see the final defeat of his city. Euripides fell out of favour with his fellow Athenian citizens and retired to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who treated him with consideration and affection. At his death, in around 406BC, he was mourned by the king, who, refusing the request of the Athenians that his remains be carried back to the Greek city, buried him with much splendor within his own dominions. His tomb was placed at the confluence of two streams, near Arethusa in Macedonia, and a cenotaph was built to his memory on the road from Athens towards the Piraeus.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in late April 1565 and baptised there on 26th April. He was one of eight children. Little is known about his life but what is evident is the enormous contribution he has made to world literature. His writing was progressive, magnificent in scope and breathtaking in execution. His plays and sonnets helped enable the English language to speak with a voice unmatched by any other. William Shakespeare died on April 23rd 1616, survived by his wife and two daughters. He was buried two days after his death in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church. The epitaph on the slab which covers his grave includes the following passage, Good friend, for Jesus's sake forbear, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed me the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones. Here we publish his historical play from 1596 'King John'.

The life of William Shakespeare, arguably the most significant figure in the Western literary canon, is relatively unknown. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1565, possibly on the 23rd April, St. George's Day, and baptised there on 26th April. Little is known of his education and the first firm facts to his life relate to his marriage, aged 18, to Anne Hathaway, who was 26 and from the nearby village of Shottery. Anne gave birth to their first son six months later. Shakespeare's first play, The Comedy of Errors began a procession of real heavyweights that were to emanate from his pen in a career of just over twenty years in which 37 plays were written and his reputation forever established. This early skill was recognised by many and by 1594 the Lord Chamberlain's Men were performing his works. With the advantage of Shakespeare's progressive writing they rapidly became London's leading company of players, affording him more exposure and, following the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, a royal patent by the new king, James I, at which point they changed their name to the King's Men. By 1598, and despite efforts to pirate his work, Shakespeare's name was well known and had become a selling point in its own right on title pages. No plays are attributed to Shakespeare after 1613, and the last few plays he wrote before this time were in collaboration with other writers, one of whom is likely to be John Fletcher who succeeded him as the house playwright for the King's Men. William Shakespeare died two months later on April 23rd, 1616, survived by his wife, two daughters and a legacy of writing that none have since yet eclipsed.

Robert Bridges was born in Walmer, Kent on the 23rd of October 1844. He went to study medicine intending to practise until the age of forty and then retire to write poetry. Lung disease forced him to retire in 1882, and from that point on he devoted himself to writing and literary research. However, Bridges' literary work started long before his retirement, his first collection of poems having been published in 1873. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1913 by George V, the only medical graduate to have held the office. He died in Oxford on the 21st of April 1930. Here we present Prometheus The Firegiver.

Thomas Middleton was born in London in April 1580 and baptised on 18th April. Middleton was aged only five when his father died. His mother remarried but this unfortunately fell apart into a fifteen year legal dispute regarding the inheritance due Thomas and his younger sister. By the time he left Oxford, at the turn of the Century, Middleton had and published Microcynicon: Six Snarling Satirese which was denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury and publicly burned. In the early years of the 17th century, Middleton wrote topical pamphlets. One - Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets was reprinted several times and the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. These early years writing plays continued to attract controversy. His writing partnership with Thomas Dekker brought him into conflict with Ben Jonson and George Chapman in the so-called War of the Theatres. His finest work with Dekker was undoubtedly The Roaring Girl, a biography of the notorious Mary Frith. In the 1610s, Middleton began another playwriting partnership, this time with the actor William Rowley, producing another slew of plays including Wit at Several Weapons and A Fair Quarrel. The ever adaptable Middleton seemed at ease working with others or by himself. His solo writing credits include the comic masterpiece, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, in 1613. In 1620 he was officially appointed as chronologer of the City of London, a post he held until his death. The 1620s saw the production of his and Rowley's tragedy, and continual favourite, The Changeling, and of several other tragicomedies. However in 1624, he reached a peak of notoriety when his dramatic allegory A Game at Chess was staged by the King's Men. Though Middleton's approach was strongly patriotic, the Privy Council silenced the play after only nine performances at the Globe theatre, having received a complaint from the Spanish ambassador. What happened next is a mystery. It is the last play recorded as having being written by Middleton. Thomas Middleton died at his home at Newington Butts in Southwark in the summer of 1627, and was buried on July 4th, in St Mary's churchyard which today survives as a public park in Elephant and Castle.

Anna Sewell's only published novel, Black Beauty, is an extraordinary classic that deals with animal life and focuses on the importance of good animal treatment. The idea of writing a book about animal rights has been inspired by Sewell's own physical disability which has made her dependent on horse-drawn transportation. The narrator in Black Beauty is himself a personified horse who tells his life story and describes the world through his own lenses. Sewell says that the objective of writing the novel is to sensitize people to the sufferings of "e;working animals"e; and she has actually succeeded in fostering legislation protecting horses and in influencing public attitudes towards animal pain. Black Beauty's life crucially changes when he is taken from a country farm to pull cabs in the city of London. The different ordeals that he has to go through often contain a moral lesson that teaches kindness and sympathy not only for the poor animals, but also between human beings themselves. Indeed, the novel does not miss to cover the hardships of London taxi drivers either. Generally, Sewell's seminal classic has had a great influence on other writers of animal stories and has opened up new windows of discovering animal life.

Edward Cooke was a 17th Century English playwright and translator. His major work is 'Love's Triumph' which celebrates the marriage of Princess Mary and William of Orange in 1677.The only other work known is a translation by him of The Divine Epicurus, or, The Empire of Pleasure over the vertues compos'd by Antoine LeGrand.No other details on his work or life are available.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was born on September 1, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois. His early career was unremarkable. After failing to enter West Point he enlisted in the 7th Calvary but was discharged after heart problems were diagnosed. A series of short term jobs gave no indication as to a career path but finally, in 1911, married and with two young children, he turned his hand to writing. He aimed his works squarely at the very popular pulp serial magazines. His first effort 'Under The Moons Of Mars' ran in Munsey's Magazine in 1912 under the pseudonym Norman Bean. With its success he began writing full time. A continuing theme of his work was to develop series so that each character had ample opportunities to return in sequels. John Carter was in the Mars series and there was another on Venus and one on Pellucidar among others. But perhaps the best known is Tarzan. Indeed Burroughs wanted so much to capitalise upon the brand that he introduced a syndicated Tarzan comic strip, movies and merchandise. He purchased a large ranch north of Los Angeles, California, which he named "e;Tarzana."e; The surrounding communities outside the ranch voted in 1927 to adopt the name as their own. By 1932 Burroughs set up his own company to print his own books. Here we publish 'The Mad King' somewhat different to what you think Burroughs would write but an engaging and crafted work that shows why Burroughs was able to weave his talents into so many stories.

Edith Newbold Jones was born in New York on January 24, 1862. Born into wealth, this background of privilege gave her a wealth of experience to eventually, after several false starts, produce many works based on it culminating in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel 'The Age Of Innocence'. Marriage to Edward Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years older in 1885 seemed to offer much and for some years they travelled extensively. After some years it was apparent that her husband suffered from acute depression and so the travelling ceased and they retired to The Mount, their estate designed by Edith. By 1908 his condition was said to be incurable and prior to divorcing Edward in 1913 she began an affair, in 1908, with Morton Fullerton, a Times journalist, who was her intellectual equal and allowed her writing talents to push forward and write the novels for which she is so well known. Acknowledged as one of the great American writers with novels such as Ethan Frome and the House of Mirth among many. Wharton also wrote many short stories, including ghost stories and poems which we are pleased to publish. Edith Wharton died of a stroke in 1937 at the Domaine Le Pavillon Colombe, her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Foret.

Flora Jane Timms was born on December 5th, 1876 in Juniper Hill in northeast Oxfordshire, the eldest of twelve children to Albert Timms, a stonemason, and Emma, a nursemaid. Only she and five siblings survived.Flora was educated at the parish school in the village of Cottisford and described as 'altogether her father's child'.When she was 14, In 1891, Flora moved to start work as a counter clerk at the post office in Fringford, a village about 4 miles northeast of Bicester. It was to be the first in a series of jobs at various other post offices, including those at Grayshott, Yateley, and later Bournemouth.By 1896 Flora was a regular contributor to The Catholic Fireside on her thoughts and activities in the Countryside and many of her works from here were published as The Peverel Papers.In 1903 she married John William Thompson, a post office clerk and telegraphist from the Isle of Wight, at Twickenham Parish Church. After the marriage they moved to Bournemouth to settle down and build a life together. A daughter, Winifred Grace, was born in 1903, followed by two sons, Henry Basil, in 1909 and Peter Redmond in 1918.Flora was a self-taught writer but had taken some time to establish her career. Her early married life may have also required setting writing aside for some time but in 1911 she won a competition in The Ladies Companion for a 300-word essay on Jane Austen.In 1921 she published her only book of poetry, Bog-Myrtle and Peat, and, by the following year, 1922, she was thinking of writing about her childhood in what would later become her defining works.Meanwhile she continued to write extensively, publishing short stories together with magazine and newspaper articles.In 1925 she published a travel guide to Liphook, Bramshott and Neighbourhood.Flora also had a great interest and knowledge, again self-taught, as a naturalist. Many of her works on the subject were published and later anthologised.In 1938 Flora at last sent several essays on her country childhood to Oxford University Press. The publisher accepted them, and they were published in three separate volumes, Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941), and Candleford Green (1943). In 1945 the books were republished as a trilogy under the title Lark Rise to Candleford. Together the books are a lightly disguised story of the author's own youth, describing life in a hamlet, a village, and a country town in the 1880s.The death of her younger son during the Second World War affected her deeply and overshadowed her final years.Flora Thompson died on 21st May 1947, at age 70, of a heart attack in Brixham, and is buried at Longcross Cemetery, Dartmouth in Devon.Two of Thompson's later lesser-known works were published posthumously: Heatherley, recounting her time in the post office at Grayshott at the turn of the 20th century as her lifelong interests took shape, the longing for education and culture and the desire to become a writer; and her last completed book Still Glides the Stream.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, more readily known as Seneca the Younger, was born at Cordoba in the Roman province of Baetica in Hispania in approx 4 BC.Seneca attests that he was taken to Rome at a young age and educated in literature, grammar, and rhetoric; the standard education of high-born Romans. He also received philosophical training.Much of his life is not well documented but accounts do lean towards a pattern of ill-health at times. His breathing difficulties are thought to be the result of asthma and during his mid-twenties he contracted tuberculosis.He was sent to Egypt to live with his aunt, whose husband, Gaius Galerius, was Prefect of Egypt. In 31 AD he returned to Rome with her and, with her influence, was elected quaestor and with it the right to sit in the Roman Senate.Seneca's early career as a senator was successful and he was fulsomely praised for his oratory. A story related that emperor Caligula was so offended by Seneca's oratorical success that he ordered him to commit suicide. Seneca's ill-health prevented that.In 41 AD, Claudius became emperor, and Seneca was promptly cited by the new empress Messalina of adultery with Julia Livilla, the sister of Caligula and Agrippina.After trial the Senate pronounced a death sentence, which Claudius then commuted to exile. Seneca was to now spend the next eight years in Corsica. From this period of exile survive two of his earliest works-both consolations.In 49 AD Agrippina married her uncle Claudius, and through her Seneca was recalled to Rome. Agrippina appointed him, as tutor to her son, the future emperor Nero.Nero's early rule, during which he followed the advice of Seneca and Burrus, was competent. However, within a few years both Seneca and Burrus had lost their influence.In 58 AD the senator Publius Suillius Rufus made a series of public attacks on him saying that, Seneca had acquired a personal fortune of three hundred million sestertii. In response, Seneca brought a series of prosecutions for corruption against him. Suillius was dispatched into exile.After Burrus's death in 62 AD, Seneca's influence further declined. He adopted a quiet lifestyle at his country estates, concentrating on his studies and seldom visiting Rome. It was during these final few years that he composed two of his greatest works: 'Naturales Quaestiones'-an encyclopedia of the natural world; and his 'Letters to Lucilius'-which document his philosophical thoughts.In AD 65, Seneca was caught up in the aftermath of the Pisonian plot to kill Nero. Nero ordered him to kill himself. Seneca followed tradition by opening several veins in order to bleed to death. It was a sad conclusion for a man who has been called the first great Western thinker on the complex nature and role of gratitude in human relationships.

Robert Browning is one of the most significant Victorian Poets and, of course, English Poetry.Much of his reputation is based upon his mastery of the dramatic monologue although his talents encompassed verse plays and even a well-regarded essay on Shelley during a long and prolific career. He was born on May 7th, 1812 in Walmouth, London. Much of his education was home based and Browning was an eclectic and studious student, learning several languages and much else across a myriad of subjects, interests and passions. Browning's early career began promisingly. The fragment from his intended long poem Pauline brought him to the attention of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was followed by Paracelsus, which was praised by both William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens. In 1840 the difficult Sordello, which was seen as willfully obscure, brought his career almost to a standstill. Despite these artistic and professional difficulties his personal life was about to become immensely fulfilling. He began a relationship with, and then married, the older and better known Elizabeth Barrett. This new foundation served to energise his writings, his life and his career. During their time in Italy they both wrote much of their best work. With her untimely death in 1861 he returned to London and thereafter began several further major projects. The collection Dramatis Personae (1864) and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-69) were published and well received; his reputation as a venerated English poet now assured. Robert Browning died in Venice on December 12th, 1889.