author
Mrs. Sutherland Orr
1828–1903
Best remembered as one of Robert Browning’s most trusted biographers, she brought a close, informed view to the poet’s life and work. Her writing helped shape how later readers understood Browning in the years just after his death.
2 Audiobooks
A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)
by Mrs. Sutherland Orr
Life and Letters of Robert Browning
by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Robert Browning
About the author
Born in St. Petersburg in 1828, Alexandra Orr—widely known as Mrs. Sutherland Orr—was an English writer and biographer. She became especially associated with Robert Browning, and is still known chiefly for her studies of his life and poetry.
She wrote A Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning and later Life and Letters of Robert Browning, drawing on unusually close knowledge of her subject. Those books made her an important early interpreter of Browning for general readers as well as devoted admirers.
Orr also had a family connection to the arts: she was the sister of the painter Frederic Leighton, and she reportedly sat as a model for at least two of his paintings. She died in 1903, leaving behind work that remains part of the literary record around Browning and his circle.