Within the collection, 58 letters are by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 34 by Robert Browning. In two cases, Robert Browning adds to a letter primarily written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning; once, he writes an entire letter on the flap of an envelope (see MA 2148.55). A number of the letters were probably sent together in the same envelope (see MA 2148.58-59 and MA 2148.60-61). There are also two envelopes addressed by Robert Browning to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett, but without accompanying letters (MA 2148.93-94).
Many of the letters continue onto the flap of the envelope that enclosed them; these envelopes have been preserved and contain significant text.
A substantial number of the letters are undated or have no place of writing. The estimated dates and places of writing given in the Morgan's catalog records draw on the digital and print editions of The Brownings' Correspondence, edited by Philip Kelley and others, and Letters of the Brownings to George Barrett, edited by Paul Landis (University of Illinois Press, 1958).
All the letters by Elizabeth Barrett Browning are signed "Ba", her family nickname. Nicknames are used for many of the other Moulton-Barrett family members as well, and these are identified and explained in each record.
The Morgan acquired several collections of material related to the Brownings in the early 1960s; see MA 2147.1-45, MA 3449.1-68, and MA 8917.1-64 for these collections. The materials in MA 2148.1-94, MA 3449.1-68, and MA 8917.1-64 had previously been owned by Lt.-Col. Harry Peyton Moulton-Barrett, and they were sold at auction by Sotheby's in 1937. The Morgan acquired the materials from the University of Illinois in 1961.
Additional information about the provenance of the correspondence is available in the Collection File.
A collection of 92 autograph letters signed and 2 envelopes without letters, to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett; written between 1838 and 1889 from London, Torquay, Paris, Florence, Rome, and several other locations in Great Britain and Europe: discussing their lives and work, including, among other subjects, the Moulton-Barrett family, Elizabeth Barrett's illness, the critical success of her Poems (1844), Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning's courtship and elopement, their subsequent life abroad with their son Pen, literary friends and acquaintances, the writing of major works like Aurora Leigh and Men and Women, spiritualism, the coup d'état in France in 1851, Italian unification, the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Pen's education and career as a painter, and the development of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's legacy. Items in the collection have been described individually in separate catalog records; see related records for more information.