Robert Browning was born on 7 May 1812 in Camberwell, England, a middle-class suburb of London. In Browning's early childhood, his religious German-Scottish mother Sarah Anna Wiedemann was a pianist and an evangelical Christian; similarly, his father Robert Browning worked as a bank clerk, artist, scholar, collected books and paintings, and was an antiquarian. Browning's father owned a rare book collection of over 6,000 volumes. His works included Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish. Most of Browning's education came from his father, and by the age of five he was already proficient in reading and writing. When Browning was fourteen, he learned Latin, Greek, and French. When Browning was twelve years old he wrote a volume of Byronic verse entitled Incondita. His parents attempted to publish it but were unsuccessful. At the age of fourteen he was educated at home by various tutors until the age of sixteen. They taught him music, dancing, drawing and horse riding. Browning had a passion for writing poetry, but Browning apparently did not write any poetry from the age of three onwards...