The Armstrong Browning Library

The two poets had unequal reputations when Armstrong began collecting. The library's blog says Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who died in June 1861, was somewhat out of fashion in the early 1900s. Robert lived twenty-eight more years, wrote The Ring and the Book in 1868 and 1869, and by his death on December 12, 1889, ranked among the most eminent late Victorian poets. The holdings now reach past the couple, with Matthew Arnold among the writers represented, plus Victorian furniture, decorative arts, paintings and sculpture, according to the Clio guide.

What the plaque says

The Armstrong Browning Library Located here on the Baylor University campus in a magnificent building created especially for it is the world's largest collection of books, manuscripts, artworks and memorabilia pertaining to the married English poets Robert Browning (1812-1889) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). This literary resource was established through the dedicated efforts of Baylor English professor Dr. Andrew Joseph Armstrong and his wife, Mary Maxwell Armstrong. In 1918, Dr. Armstrong, who admired the optimism and spiritual values in Robert Browning's poetry, donated his personal collection to Baylor University. Four decades of creative fundraising efforts by the Armstrongs resulted in the acquisition of more items located throughout the world, and in 1925, the Times of London called it "the most important collection of Browningiana in the world." It was housed in "The Browning Room" of the Carroll Library. In 1951, the collection was moved here to a new library building named for Dr. Armstrong and Robert Browning. In addition to the core collection of Browning books, letters, manuscripts and other papers, the library houses an impressive array of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and art objects that belonged to the Brownings or that relate to their work. The 19th century collection, added to the university library system in the 1980s, includes early editions of important works by other Victorian writers such as John Ruskin and Charles Dickens, a minor English poets collection, and a women poets collection. Also housed here are archives of 19th-century French literary critic and philosopher Joseph Milsand, a longtime friend of the Brownings. Together, the collections offer a literary resource valued by scholars worldwide. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — steps away
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 0.9 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 0.9 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 1.3 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Andrew Joseph Armstrong and Mary Maxwell Armstrong — steps away
• Governor Patrick Morris Neff — steps away
• The Texas Collection — steps away
• Burleson Quadrangle — steps away