Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Robert Browning's 1889 phonograph reading of "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" is the earliest known recording of any poet. (Source.)
In addition to academics, high school students, and readers of Victorian poetry everywhere, this poem also inspired a New Wave Norwegian rock band founded in 1980. Their name? You guessed it: Fra Lippo Lippi. Although they never captured the U.S. market, they were huge in… the Philippines. (Source.)
Robert Browning had a private library of more than 6,000 books (lucky). (Source.)