She was the first woman to be nominated for Poet Laureate, 159 years before a woman was actually appointed

Browning's achievement in the struggle against the stigmatized label of "woman writer" made her the first female poet in England to possibly be given consideration for the position of poet laureate. Scholars have preferred to remember her as the passionate woman who left home to marry her young poet-lover rather than as the innovative poet who gave voice to women's private and intellectual needs, despite her popularity and critical acclaim during her lifetime.

In her Sonnets from the Portuguese, Browning composed some of the most well-known love poetry in the world. She also wrote extensively on political and social issues (1850).She also penned the semi-autobiographical story of a female poet striving for literary success and an equal partnership in marriage; her verse novel Aurora Leigh (1856) has been hailed by feminist critics as a new model of poetry and of womanhood.