Harriet Downing

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HD is remarkable both as a late Romantic poet (whose first publication makes a strong claim for women's capacity for friendship, equal to that of men) and as an early Victorian writer of short magazine fiction. She worked on a novel which she did not publish.

Milestones

Shortly before 12 August 1778

Harriet Bourne (later HD ) was born in London; she was baptised on this day at All Hallows Church in Tottenham, which is now a part of the capital.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.

1816

HD issued by subscription her first volume: Mary; or, Female Friendship: A Poem in Twelve Books, with her full name, printed for the author.
Downing, Harriet. Mary; or, Female Friendship. James Harper.
title-page

October 1836

Fraser's Magazine began the anonymous serial publication of HD 's Remembrances of a Monthly Nurse, a woman who works as resident help in successive households where there is a new baby.
Fraser’s Magazine. James Fraser; Longmans, Green.
(1836): 398

18 March 1845

HDMrs. Harriet Oliver (formerly Downing)—died of apoplexy (that is a stroke) at Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire. The Gentleman's Magazine notice of her death mentioned her Remembrances of a Monthly Nurse and other writings.
Ashfield, Andrew. Emails to Isobel Grundy about Sarah/Susanna Pearson, Harriet Downing.
(May 1845): 563
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
(May 1845): 563

1852

HD 's Remembrances of a Monthly Nurse, which had first appeared in Fraser's Magazine in 1836, were posthumously published in book form.
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

Biography

Birth and Background

Shortly before 12 August 1778

Harriet Bourne (later HD ) was born in London; she was baptised on this day at All Hallows Church in Tottenham, which is now a part of the capital.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.