Charlotte Brooke
-
Irishwoman CB
wrote during the final two decades of the eighteenth century in many genres (including a lost play, a novel, poetry, and letters, the last two mainly religious in tone and subject-matter), but her claim to fame is her scholarly and creative rediscovery, translation, and publication of poetry written in the Irish language.
Milestones
Probably between 1750 and 1760
CB
was born at Rantavan in Cavan, one of the last of a large family of children and apparently the youngest survivor.
Sources differ as to this date, some saying as early as 1740. O'Donoghue
's The Poets of Ireland gives 1750. Joep Leersson
's entry for CB
in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests that the figure of twenty-two siblings may have included some cousins who shared the same house, children of Charlotte's uncle Robert Brooke. But the same contributor's entry on Henry Brooke specifies that Henry had twenty-three children.
Welch, Robert, and Bruce Stewart, editors. The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Clarendon, 1996.
Brooke, Charlotte. “Introduction”. Charlotte Brooke’s Reliques of Irish Poetry, edited by Lesa Ni Mhunghaile, Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2009, p. xxv - xliv.
xxiii
1786
CB
contributed anonymous translations of Irish poems to Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards, edited by Joseph C. Walker
.
Ashley, Leonard R. N., Aaron Crossley-Seymour, Charlotte Brooke, and Aaron Crossley-Seymour. “Introduction”. Reliques of Irish Poetry, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1970, p. v - xv.
vi
21 August 1788
The Dublin Chronicle reported the proposals for CB
's Reliques of Irish Poetry, mentioning that a beautiful Irish type would be used for the printing.
Brooke, Charlotte. “Introduction”. Charlotte Brooke’s Reliques of Irish Poetry, edited by Lesa Ni Mhunghaile, Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2009, p. xxv - xliv.
xxxi and n46
1789
CB
published at Dublin, by subscription, the work on which her fame rests: Reliques of Irish Poetry . . . translated into English verse: with . . . the originals in the Irish Character.
English Short Title Catalogue.
29 March 1793
CB
died of a malignant fever.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Crossley-Seymour, Aaron, and Charlotte Brooke. “A Memoir of Miss Brooke”. Reliques of Irish Poetry, J. Christie, 1816, p. 1: iii - cxxviii.
lxx
After April 1816
CB
's Reliques of Irish Poetry, was reprinted by subscription in a second Dublin edition, octavo, with the substantial A Memoir of Miss Brooke, dated in April, by Aaron Crossley Seymour
.
Behrendt, Stephen C. “Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period: A different sort of other”. Women’s Writing, No. 2, pp. 153 - 75.
167
Brooke, Charlotte. “Introduction”. Charlotte Brooke’s Reliques of Irish Poetry, edited by Lesa Ni Mhunghaile, Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2009, p. xxv - xliv.
xxxi
British Library Catalogue.
Biography
Birth and Family
Probably between 1750 and 1760
CB
was born at Rantavan in Cavan, one of the last of a large family of children and apparently the youngest survivor.
Sources differ as to this date, some saying as early as 1740. O'Donoghue
's The Poets of Ireland gives 1750. Joep Leersson
's entry for CB
in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests that the figure of twenty-two siblings may have included some cousins who shared the same house, children of Charlotte's uncle Robert Brooke. But the same contributor's entry on Henry Brooke specifies that Henry had twenty-three children.
Welch, Robert, and Bruce Stewart, editors. The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Clarendon, 1996.
Brooke, Charlotte. “Introduction”. Charlotte Brooke’s Reliques of Irish Poetry, edited by Lesa Ni Mhunghaile, Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2009, p. xxv - xliv.
xxiii