SOURCE: “Since When Was Genius Found Respectable?” in Spectator, July 23, 1988, p. 26.

In the following review, Berridge praises Forster's portrayal of the complex life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

It is one of the ironies of posterity that anyone who has made a considerable mark on his or her own times should be remembered for one thing only. Up to a few years ago Elizabeth Barrett Browning was cast as the invalid of Wimpole Street, prayed over by her father, as Chesterton put it, ‘with a kind of melancholy glee.’ Then brought back to life and liberty by the dashing young poet, Robert Browning, she was off to Italy to live happily ever after and write a few poems.

Previous biographers, notably Alethea Hayter, Dorothy Hewlett and Gardner Taplin, went some way to setting the record straight; as did the re-publication of Aurora Leigh by the Women's Press in 1978, and...