Frances Browne

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FB published from the mid to the late nineteenth century, arousing public interest on account of her blindness. Having begun with poetry, she became best known for fiction—novels and short stories for children and adults—and her famed story collection Granny's Wonderful Chair became a classic.
Black and white, head-and-shoulders photograph of Frances Browne, shown at a three quarter turn. She is wearing a dark jacket with a white collar outside it, and large silver hoop earrings. Her straight hair is pulled back and hangs in a long plait down one side.

Milestones

16 January 1816
FB was born at Stranorlar in County Donegal, Ireland, the seventh in a family of twelve children.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/, http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
By 6 December 1856
FB published with her name her most famous work, Granny's Wonderful Chair and its Tales of Fairy Times, with illustrations by Kenny Meadows and bearing the date 1857.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1519 (1856): 1497
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
199
1875
FB issued with the Religious Tract Society a didactic volume entitled The Nearest Neighbour and Other Stories, apparently her last publication before her death.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
199
21 August 1879
FB died of apoplexy (that is a stroke) at her home at 19 St John's Grove, Richmond, Surrey.
The Dictionary of Literary Biography gives a very different account of her death, dating it as 25 August 1879 and listing the cause as heart disease.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
199
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/, http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Biography

Birth and Background

16 January 1816
FB was born at Stranorlar in County Donegal, Ireland, the seventh in a family of twelve children.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/, http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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