Owenson, Sydney, Lady Morgan

(?1783-1859)

   Born in Dublin, the daughter of Robert Owenson, a roving Irish actor, she was governess in the family of Featherstone of Bracklin Castle, Westmeath, from 1798 to 1800. She collected a number of Irish tunes and wrote English words to them, which were subsequently published. Her first novel, St. Clair, or The Heiress of Desmond (1803), was such a success that she devoted herself entirely to writing. Her second novel The Wild Irish Girl (1806)which went through several editions-brought her financial success. In England she came under the patronage of the Marquis and Marchioness of Abercorn, where she met the Englishman Charles Morgan, the Marquis' personal physician. Morgan was knighted prior to their marriage in 1812 and the couple moved to Dublin. Altogether she published ten novels, along with biography and memoirs, and from an early age she wrote poetry. She was buried in Brompton cemetery, Kensington, London. Some of her poems: "Kate Kearney," "Ode to Whim," "On My Birth-Day," "On the Death of a Favourite LapDog," "The Hawthorn Tree," "The Recantation," "To a Thrush," "To Sleep," "Will of the Wisp."

   Sources: Best Loved Songs of the American People. Anthology Editor, Denes Agay, Doubleday (1975). Biography of Lady Morgan Sydney Owenson (http://www.sydneyowenson.com/SydneyOwensonBio.html). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Poems Between Women: Four Centuries of Love, Romantic Friendship, and Desire. Emma Donoghue, ed. Columbia University Press, 1997. Romantic Women Poets: An Antholog y. Duncan Wu, ed. Blackwell Publishers, 1997. Romanticism. Duncan Wu, ed. Blackwell, 1994. 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 National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.