Lady Morgan
Encyclopedia
Sydney, Lady Morgan was an Irish
novel
ist, best known as the author of The Wild Irish Girl
.
, alias Macowen, and Jane Hill. Robert Owenson was an Irish Catholic and a professional actor, noted for his comedic performances. He had been raised in London, and while in England he met and married Jane Hill, the protestant daughter of a trader from Shrewsbury. In 1776 Owenson and his wife returned to Ireland for good. The couple settled in Dublin and Owenson earned a living by performing in theaters around Dublin, Drumcondrath, and Sligo. Around 1778 the couple gave birth to Sydney, who was named after her paternal grandmother. The exact date of Sydney's birth remains unknown. One of Syndey's idiosyncrancies was that she was prone to be elusive about her actual age. Later in life she would claim that she was born on Dec 25, 1785. She maintained this lie to such an extent that even on her death certificate there is no certainty about her age, stating that she was "about 80 years".
Sydney spent the earliest years of her childhood at the Owenson's home at 60 Dame Street in Dublin with her mother and sister Olivia. Sydney was primarily educated by her mother, but she also received tutoring from a young boy named Thomas Mcdermot, a local prodigy that their father had rescued from poverty. In 1789, when Sydney was about ten years old, her mother Jane died, and her father sent her and her sister away to private schools to finish their education. Sydney spent three years at a Huguenout acadamy at Clontarf and then attended a finishing school in Earl Street, Dublin. After completing school Sydney moved with her father to Sligo.
In 1798 the Owenson family was experiencing some financial hardships and Sydney was forced to leave home in search of employment. She was hired as a governess by the Featherstones of Braclkin Castsle, co. Westmeath. In this environment she blossomed into an avid reader, a capable conversationalist, and an unabashed performer of songs and dances. It was at this period in her life that she began her writing career.
. Her St. Clair (1804), a novel of ill-judged marriage, ill-starred love, and impassioned nature worship, in which the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(specifically his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther
) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
was apparent, at once attracted attention. Another novel, The Novice of St. Dominick (1806), was also praised for its qualities of imagination and description.
But the book which made her reputation and brought her name into warm controversy was The Wild Irish Girl
(1806), in which she appeared as the ardent champion of her native country, a politician rather than a novelist, extolling the beauty of Irish scenery, the richness of the natural wealth of Ireland
, and the noble traditions of its early history. She was known in Catholic
and Liberal
circles by the name of her heroine Glorvina.
Patriotic Sketches and Metrical Fragments followed in 1807. She published The Missionary: An Indian Tale in 1811, revising it shortly before her death as Luxima, the Prophetess. Percy Bysshe Shelley
admired The Missionary intensely and Owenson's heroine is said to have influenced some of his own orientalist
productions. Miss Owenson entered the household of John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn
, and in 1812, persuaded by Anne Jane Gore, Lady Abercorn, she married the philosopher and surgeon to the household, Thomas Charles Morgan
, afterwards knight
ed; but books still continued to flow from her facile pen.
In 1814 she produced her best novel, O'Donnell. She was at her best in her descriptions of the poorer classes, of whom she had a thorough knowledge. Her elaborate study (1817) of France
under the Bourbon restoration
was attacked with outrageous fury by John Wilson Croker
in the Quarterly Review
, the authoress being accused of Jacobinism, falsehood, licentiousness and impiety. She took her revenge indirectly in the novel of Florence Macarthy (1818), in which a Quarterly reviewer, Con Crawley, is insulted with supreme feminine ingenuity.
Italy, a companion work to her France, was published in 1821 with appendices by her husband; Lord Byron bears testimony to the justness of its pictures of life. The results of Italian historical studies were given in her Life and Times of Salvator Rosa (1823). Then she turned again to Irish manners and politics with a matter-of-fact book on Absenteeism (1825), and a romantic novel, The O'Briens and the O'Flaherties (1827). From William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
Lady Morgan obtained a pension of £300. During the later years of her long life she published The Book of the Boudoir (1829), Dramatic Scenes from Real Life (1833), The Princess (1835), Woman and her Master (1840), The Book without a Name (1841), and Passages from my Autobiography (1859).
Sir Thomas died in 1843, and Lady Morgan died on 14 April 1859 (aged about 82) and was buried in Brompton Cemetery
, London.
There is a bust of Lady Morgan in the Victoria and Albert Museum
in London
. The plaque, identifying the bust, mentions that Lady Morgan was "less than four feet tall."
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist, best known as the author of The Wild Irish Girl
The Wild Irish Girl
The Wild Irish Girl; a National Tale is an epistolary novel written by Irish novelist Sydney Owenson in 1806.-Plot:The Hon. Horatio M———, son of the Earl of M———, is banished to his father's estate on the northwest coast of Connacht as punishment for accumulating large debts...
.
Early life
Sydney Owenson was the daughter of Robert OwensonRobert Owenson
Robert Owenson was an Irish actor, author and father of Lady Olivia Clark and novelist Lady Morgan.-Career:Born in the Tirawley area of County Mayo, Owenson would go on to establish a National Theatre Music Hall at Fishamble St., Dublin...
, alias Macowen, and Jane Hill. Robert Owenson was an Irish Catholic and a professional actor, noted for his comedic performances. He had been raised in London, and while in England he met and married Jane Hill, the protestant daughter of a trader from Shrewsbury. In 1776 Owenson and his wife returned to Ireland for good. The couple settled in Dublin and Owenson earned a living by performing in theaters around Dublin, Drumcondrath, and Sligo. Around 1778 the couple gave birth to Sydney, who was named after her paternal grandmother. The exact date of Sydney's birth remains unknown. One of Syndey's idiosyncrancies was that she was prone to be elusive about her actual age. Later in life she would claim that she was born on Dec 25, 1785. She maintained this lie to such an extent that even on her death certificate there is no certainty about her age, stating that she was "about 80 years".
Sydney spent the earliest years of her childhood at the Owenson's home at 60 Dame Street in Dublin with her mother and sister Olivia. Sydney was primarily educated by her mother, but she also received tutoring from a young boy named Thomas Mcdermot, a local prodigy that their father had rescued from poverty. In 1789, when Sydney was about ten years old, her mother Jane died, and her father sent her and her sister away to private schools to finish their education. Sydney spent three years at a Huguenout acadamy at Clontarf and then attended a finishing school in Earl Street, Dublin. After completing school Sydney moved with her father to Sligo.
In 1798 the Owenson family was experiencing some financial hardships and Sydney was forced to leave home in search of employment. She was hired as a governess by the Featherstones of Braclkin Castsle, co. Westmeath. In this environment she blossomed into an avid reader, a capable conversationalist, and an unabashed performer of songs and dances. It was at this period in her life that she began her writing career.
Career
She was one of the most vivid and hotly discussed literary figures of her generation. She began her career with a precocious volume of poems. She collected Irish tunes, for which she composed the words, thus setting a fashion adopted with signal success by Thomas MooreThomas Moore
Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...
. Her St. Clair (1804), a novel of ill-judged marriage, ill-starred love, and impassioned nature worship, in which the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
(specifically his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787...
) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
was apparent, at once attracted attention. Another novel, The Novice of St. Dominick (1806), was also praised for its qualities of imagination and description.
But the book which made her reputation and brought her name into warm controversy was The Wild Irish Girl
The Wild Irish Girl
The Wild Irish Girl; a National Tale is an epistolary novel written by Irish novelist Sydney Owenson in 1806.-Plot:The Hon. Horatio M———, son of the Earl of M———, is banished to his father's estate on the northwest coast of Connacht as punishment for accumulating large debts...
(1806), in which she appeared as the ardent champion of her native country, a politician rather than a novelist, extolling the beauty of Irish scenery, the richness of the natural wealth of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, and the noble traditions of its early history. She was known in Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
and Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
circles by the name of her heroine Glorvina.
Patriotic Sketches and Metrical Fragments followed in 1807. She published The Missionary: An Indian Tale in 1811, revising it shortly before her death as Luxima, the Prophetess. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
admired The Missionary intensely and Owenson's heroine is said to have influenced some of his own orientalist
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
productions. Miss Owenson entered the household of John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn
John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn
John James Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn KG, PC was an Irish peer and politician.-Background:He was the son of Captain Hon. John Hamilton and grandson of James Hamilton, 7th Earl of Abercorn. He was educated at Harrow and Pembroke College, Cambridge...
, and in 1812, persuaded by Anne Jane Gore, Lady Abercorn, she married the philosopher and surgeon to the household, Thomas Charles Morgan
Thomas Charles Morgan
Sir Thomas Charles Morgan was an English physician and writer with an interest in philosophical and miscellaneous subject matter. His wife was the famed novelist Lady Morgan....
, afterwards knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
ed; but books still continued to flow from her facile pen.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
under the Bourbon restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
was attacked with outrageous fury by John Wilson Croker
John Wilson Croker
John Wilson Croker was an Irish statesman and author.He was born at Galway, the only son of John Croker, the surveyor-general of customs and excise in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1800...
in the Quarterly Review
Quarterly Review
The Quarterly Review was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by the well known London publishing house John Murray. It ceased publication in 1967.-Early years:...
, the authoress being accused of Jacobinism, falsehood, licentiousness and impiety. She took her revenge indirectly in the novel of Florence Macarthy (1818), in which a Quarterly reviewer, Con Crawley, is insulted with supreme feminine ingenuity.
Italy, a companion work to her France, was published in 1821 with appendices by her husband; Lord Byron bears testimony to the justness of its pictures of life. The results of Italian historical studies were given in her Life and Times of Salvator Rosa (1823). Then she turned again to Irish manners and politics with a matter-of-fact book on Absenteeism (1825), and a romantic novel, The O'Briens and the O'Flaherties (1827). From William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, PC, FRS was a British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary and Prime Minister . He is best known for his intense and successful mentoring of Queen Victoria, at ages 18-21, in the ways of politics...
Lady Morgan obtained a pension of £300. During the later years of her long life she published The Book of the Boudoir (1829), Dramatic Scenes from Real Life (1833), The Princess (1835), Woman and her Master (1840), The Book without a Name (1841), and Passages from my Autobiography (1859).
Sir Thomas died in 1843, and Lady Morgan died on 14 April 1859 (aged about 82) and was buried in Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery
Brompton Cemetery is located near Earl's Court in South West London, England . It is managed by The Royal Parks and is one of the Magnificent Seven...
, London.
Legacy
Lady Morgan's autobiography and many interesting letters were edited with a memoir by W. Hepworth Dixon in 1862.There is a bust of Lady Morgan in the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The plaque, identifying the bust, mentions that Lady Morgan was "less than four feet tall."
External links
- Sydney Owenson.com, Etexts