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Located here on the Baylor University campus in a magnificent building created especially for it is the world's largest collection of books, manuscripts, artworks and memorabilia pertaining to the married English poets Robert Browning (1812-1889) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). This literary resource was established through the dedicated efforts of Baylor English professor Dr. Andrew Joseph Armstrong and his wife, Mary Maxwell Armstrong. In 1918, Dr. Armstrong, who admired the optimism and spiritual values in Robert Browning's poetry, donated his personal collection to Baylor University. Four decades of creative fundraising efforts by the Armstrongs resulted in the acquisition of more items located throughout the world, and in 1925, the Times of London called it "the most important collection of Browningiana in the world." It was housed in "The Browning Room" of the Carroll Library. In 1951, the collection was moved here to a new library building named for Dr. Armstrong and Robert Browning. In addition to the core collection of Browning books, letters, manuscripts and other papers, the library houses an impressive array of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and art objects that belonged to the Brownings or that relate to their work. The 19th century collection, added to the university library system in the 1980s, includes early editions of important works by other Victorian writers such as John Ruskin and Charles Dickens, a minor English poets collection, and a women poets collection. Also housed here are archives of 19th-century French literary critic and philosopher Joseph Milsand, a longtime friend of the Brownings. Together, the collections offer a literary resource valued by scholars worldwide. (2006) |
