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Intro
Aurora Leigh, the daughter of an English father and an Italian mother, lives in 19th-century Florence. When Aurora’s mother dies, her father takes her to live in the mountains of the Italian countryside. Aurora has a happy childhood until one day when her father dies, leaving her with some final words of advice: “Love, my child.”
Aurora is forced to go to England and live with her aunt in Leigh Hall, her family’s property. Aurora’s aunt is cold and rarely shows any form of affection to Aurora, making her miss the mountains of Italy. Still, she begins trying to make the best of life in England when she discovers some of her father’s old books, which inspire Aurora to start on her own tentative attempts at making poetry.
Aurora’s life in Leigh Hall is isolated, and initially she befriends her cousin Romney because he’s one of the few visitors she ever sees. Still, over time they grow closer, and one morning Romney proposes marriage to Aurora. He does so in a way that Aurora finds condescending, however, and he talks dismissively about her artistic goals, believing that it isn’t possible for a woman to be a good poet. Romney has lofty and arrogant ideas about how he can change the world through his social work. Aurora rejects the marriage proposal, to the frustration of her aunt, who informs Aurora that Romney is set to inherit all her father’s money and Aurora will be poor if she doesn’t marry him.
After the death of Aurora’s aunt, Aurora refuses to accept money from Romney, deciding to go to London to try to make it as a poet on her own terms. Although she publishes some writing, she feels that her early publications are insignificant, and she believes that her true masterpiece will be a book-length poem.
Meanwhile, Romney gets deeper into his charity work, and this leads to him proposing to marry Marian Erle, a poor girl who was abused by her parents and is trying to make a new life for herself. The aristocratic Lady Waldemar breaks the news of Romney’s impending marriage to Aurora, hoping that Aurora can help in Lady Waldemar’s scheme to break up the marriage—so that Lady Waldemar can marry Romney herself. On the day of the planned wedding, Romney receives a letter on the altar from Marian about why she can’t marry him. People at the wedding think that Romney has betrayed Marian and start attacking him.
All the while, Aurora struggles to write the type of poetry that she wants to, so she decides to go to her old home of Italy to seek inspiration. She sells the manuscript of a book-length poem, then heads to Paris.
While exploring Paris before heading to Italy, Aurora is shocked to see Marian, who disappeared after choosing not to marry Romney. Aurora is surprised to see that Marian is unmarried but has a child, and she accuses Marian of being promiscuous. But Marian explains the situation—Lady Waldemar convinced Marian that Romney could never really love her, and then one of Lady Waldemar’s maids took Marian to Paris where she would be able to hide away. But before Marian knew what was happening, the maid took her to a brothel, and there Marian was raped and became pregnant. Marian struggled for a while to find shelter for her and her child before eventually finding work as a seamstress.
Aurora writes angrily to Lady Waldemar about Marian’s situation. Aurora then offers for Marian and her child to come with her to Italy and live there. Marian gratefully accepts. Before they leave, Marian is surprised to learn in a letter that the manuscript she sold to pay for her trip to Italy has become a big success and that even critics who used to ignore her work are now talking about it. She wonders if perhaps the manuscript was a better piece of writing than she initially thought.
Aurora, Marian, and Marian’s child make it to Italy, where several years pass. Aurora is happy to be part of a family unit but struggles to write the type of poetry she wants to. One day, Romney suddenly arrives in Italy, having learned about Aurora and Marian’s whereabouts. Aurora is cordial but cold to Romney, believing that he is currently married to Lady Waldemar, which was the rumor going around. Romney says that he read and loved Aurora’s book and he apologizes for how he condescended to her earlier. Romney has become less arrogant, in part because his grand scheme to turn Leigh Hall into a shelter for the poor ended with the house being burned down. Romney also suffered a period of severe illness and ended up blind.
Finally, Romney reveals that he is not married to Lady Waldemar after all. He is prepared to marry Marian and take in her child, since he promised to do this earlier, but Marian stops him, saying that as much as she admires Romney, she doesn’t love him romantically.
Romney admits to Aurora that he still loves her and would still marry her if she’d accept him. Aurora confesses that she too loves Romney, even if she sometimes didn’t admit it in the past. She realizes that pursuing a personal relationship doesn’t have to come at the expense of her poetic work. Romney and Aurora embrace, and Aurora describes for Romney the Italian landscape that he can no longer see due to his blindness.
