As the hit play Dear Liar drew on the life-long correspondence of Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, author Jerome Kilty uses the poems and letters of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, to present this compelling portrait of a couple whose words and love are legendary. First corresponding via letters, when Elizabeth thinks of Browning as merely "an acquaintance", his poetry moves her so deeply they eventually meet. Chastised by her stern father and guilty over the death of her beloved brother, Elizabeth is bereft and isolated. Browning begins to court her and she is finally persuaded to marry and accompany him to Italy, where their love might grow away from the over-watchful eyes of her antagonistic, Victorian father. Elizabeth Barrett loved Robert Browning beyond all enduring; Dear Love recounts the ways.
DEAR LOVE was presented on National Pre-Broadway Tour by Weston Productions, beginning at the Geary Theatre in San Francisco, California on Octorber 19, 1970.
The first play based upon the love letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett was performed at Wellesley College on November 7, 1969.