The romance between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning began via letters, when Browning wrote to express his admiration for EBB's Poems (1844) in January 1845. Because EBB's father disapproved of their relationship, the couple married in secret on September 12, 1846, at a chapel near Wimpole Street while EBB's family was away. They then moved to Italy and eventually settled at Casa Guidi where they lived until their deaths. 

Portraits of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning by Thomas Buchanan Read (1853).