Hemans, Felicia Dorothea

(1793-1835)

   Dorothea Browne was from Liverpool, the daughter of a merchant whose business suffered as a result of the war with France. The family moved to Wales in 1800, and the father to Canada, where he died. Dororhea married Captain Alfred Hemans in 1812, but they separated in 1818 and she returned to Wales. She died in Ireland after a prolonged illness and was buried in St. Anne's Church, Dublin. Poems was published in 1808, followed in the same year by "England and Spain, or Valor and Patriotism," a poem inspired by the fighting of her two brothers in the Peninsular War. She published 12 volumes of poems and hymns, and her Hymns for Childhood was first published in America in 1827. Her sister, Mrs. Hughes, published The Works of Mrs. Hemans, with a Memoir of her Life (W. Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1839). Some of her poems: "Ancient Battle Song," "Song of Emigration," "The American Forest Girl," "The Cambrian in America," "The Homes of England," "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," "The Stranger in Louisiana," "The Voice of Home to the Prodigal."

   Sources: Confucius to Cummings: An Anthology of Poetry. Ezra Pound and Marcella Spann, ed. New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1964. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Best Loved Poems of the American People. Hazel Felleman, ed. Doubleday, 1936. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Cyber Hymnal (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Poetical Works of Mrs. Felicia Hemans. Phillips and Sampson, 1848.