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IRISH WOMEN WRITERS OF THE ROMANTIC ERA
Papers of Mary Tighe (1772-1810) and Lady Sydney Morgan
(1776-1859) from the National Library of Ireland

Mary Tighe and Lady Sydney Morgan were two of the most influential women writers at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Scholars of Romanticism have recently drawn attention to the significance of their surviving literary manuscripts and we now offer these in full from the archives of the National Library of Ireland, Dublin with additional material for Lady Sydney Morgan from Trinity College, Dublin.

 

Mary Tighe (1772-1810), the author of the languorously erotic poem Psyche, or the Legend of Love, is now better known for her influence on the work of Keats. Lady Sydney Morgan (née Owenson, 1776-1859), best-selling author of over seventy volumes of fiction, poetry and prose, including The Wild Irish Girl, was a leading light in the academic and social circles of London and Dublin.

Mary Tighe was born in Dublin in 1772, the daughter of Theodosia Tighe, a Methodist leader, and the Rev William Blachford. Her father died in 1773, leaving her mother to provide her with a liberal education, together with her brother John. In 1793 she married her cousin, Henry Tighe (1771-1836) of Woodstock, County Wicklow, and promptly left to live in London from 1793 to 1800. It was not a happy marriage and they returned to Dublin in 1801 where Mary started to write.  Her early verse was circulated in manuscript and Thomas Moore addressed a poem, ‘To Mrs Henry Tighe on reading her Psyche’ in 1802.  Her poem Psyche or the Legend of Love was printed privately in 1805. It had many admirers, receiving high praise in The Quarterly Review, and is believed to have had much influence on Keats’s work. She also wrote a long autobiographical novel entitled Selena, which was never published. It is interesting that this described the death of a mother from consumption and the impact that this had on the family. In the real world, it was Mary Tighe who died of tuberculosis in 1810 at the age of 38.  She was buried at Inistioge. Psyche was republished in 1811 and gained a much wider circulation. Mary’s poetic skills and tragic early death made her a Romantic icon and Felicia Hemans wrote On the Grave of a Poetess in her memory.

Much of the correspondence included in this microfilm edition consists of letters to members of the Tighe family with many to her cousin William Tighe. There are also several letters between the Tighe family and Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler, known as the ‘Ladies of Llangollen’, Hester Thrale Piozzi, Anna Seward and William Wilberforce.

Literary manuscripts include a large album of transcripts of Mary and William Tighe’s verse; two copies of her poem Psyche or the Legend of Love; a printed copy of Mary, A Series of Reflections during Twenty Years; and volumes I-V of Selena. We also include critical book reviews written by Mary and biographical notes on her compiled by her sister Mrs Caroline Hamilton.

Lady Sydney Morgan was born Sydney Owenson, the daughter of Robert Owenson (formerly MacOwen) the Irish actor, and Jane (Hill), his English wife in 1776 – apparently on board ship as they were crossing the Irish Sea on Christmas Day.  Her mother died in 1789 and her father struggled to support her and her sister Olivia (later Lady Clarke), although he did manage to send them to Madame Terson’s famous school in Clontarf and later to finishing school in Dublin.  Sydney Owenson was employed as a governess from the age of 18 but took to writing and published her first novel at the age of 21 entitled St Clair, or the Heiress of Desmond.  However, she made her name with the publication of The Wild Irish Girl in 1806. She became a favourite in literary and social circles in England and her novel The Missionary (1811), set in India, was greatly admired by Shelley.  In 1812 she married Thomas Charles Morgan, an English surgeon who was granted a knighthood. They moved to Dublin where she continued to write novels, essays and travel books, travelling widely in France and Italy with her husband. Because of her wit, strong personality and intelligence she was in regular contact with all the great and the good of the time, who attended her soirées at her salons in Kildare Street in Dublin and in London. Her house was also the meeting place for young Irish liberals and it was constantly monitored by the government, as she was a known Irish nationalist. Her novels proved to be extremely popular and in 1837 she became the first woman writer to receive a literary pension from the British government for services to literature.

We include Lady Sydney Morgan’s diaries and commonplace books covering the years 1825-1859.  These are packed with fascinating detail on her private and social life. She describes the soirées, “musicales” and parties she organised in Dublin and London and lists the people who attended them. Among these are well known and distinguished members of Irish and British society and political life such as Daniel O’ Connell and Lord Anglesey, Sir Arthur and Lady Clarke and men of science such as Charles Babbage and William Whewell. Members of the foreign aristocracy also attended, as did American politicians. She corresponded with a wide variety of literary figures including Sir Walter Scott, Shelley, Maria Edgeworth and Lord Byron. In the excerpt below written the year before she died she describes a visit from the Duke of Wellington and Sir Charles Nicholson:

“1858 Sunday 7th Feb

 

An ailing week but working well with Miss Jewsberry all the same for a couple of hours every day – See a good many odds and ends of people (more odds than ends) with two exceptions Sir Charles Nicholson & the Duke of Wellington, the first agreeable & communicative – all our opinions alike. He brought me a present of a pleasant book – parodizing the poetry of the present day. The Duke very kind & confidential presented me with a new vol of his father’s dispatches….”

In her commonplace books she collected news cuttings of important speeches, obituaries, Irish news and reviews of her writings, and annotated these with her thoughts on the events. Many of the news cuttings cover political events in France and Ireland. Also pasted in are handwritten poems, menus for her dinner parties and letters she had received.  

We also include two bodies of her correspondence with family and acquaintances for the period 1816 and 1854 and several individual letters written by her which have only recently been acquired by the National Library of Ireland.

In addition we are grateful to Trinity College, Dublin who have allowed us to include other collections of Lady Morgan’s letters to a wide variety of correspondents, which are mostly undated. 

These papers will prove invaluable to all those researching the literature of the Romantic period, women’s writing in the Age of Jane Austen, late 18th and early 19th century social history and gender studies.



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