Sydney Owenson Lady Morgan

-
In her capacities as poet, novelist, and travel writer with a sharp eye for culture and politics, SOLM spoke for the early movement of Irish nationalism. She also wrote plays and verse. Her reputation, once dragged down by her politics, is now rising.
  • BirthName: Sydney Owenson
    She was christened after her paternal grandmother, an Ascendancy beauty who had eloped with a handsome young farmer. The surname had been recently changed from MacOwen
    Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
    19-20, 16-17

  • Nicknames: Glorvina
    The name of her most famous fictional heroine was applied to her both as celebration and as abuse.
    ; The Wild Irish Girl
    The title of her best-known and most controversial novel also became her epithet, used by herself as well as others.
    Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
    61

  • Married: LadyMorgan
  • Pseudonym: S. O.
  • Titled: LadyMorgan
Full-length portrait of Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan, by René Théodore Berthon, c. 1818. She sits in an ornate chair, with an elbow on a desk bearing paper, an inkwell, and a vase of flowers; her head rests pensively on her hand. She is wearing a black Empire-style dress with short puff sleeves, and holding a quill pen. A blue mantle with plentiful white fur trim is thrown carelessly on her chair. National Gallery of Ireland.
Title-page of "Miss Owenson" (later Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan)'s "The Lay of an Irish Harp or Metrical Fragments", New York, 1808 (the year after it appeared in England). The page features an over-sized Irish harp resting against what must be intended as a weeping willow.

Milestones

Christmas Day, perhaps 1776

Sydney Owenson was born: probably in Dublin although possibly, with happy symbolism, on board ship crossing the Irish Sea.
The exact birthdate remains uncertain: throughout her life she was reticent about her age.
Newcomer, James. Lady Morgan the Novelist. Bucknell University Press and Associated University Presses, 1990.
9
Literary historian Joanne Shattock argued for 25 December 1783; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives 1778.
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press, 1993.
Biographer Mary Campbell favours Christmas Day, 1776, and notes that the boat story was early current among her father's acting friends, but that her own Memoirs say unequivocally that she was born in Dublin.
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
1, 16-17
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
1, 17

By September 1806

Sydney Owenson (later Lady Morgan) published the novel which is still her best-known: The Wild Irish Girl.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Editors Dixon, William Hepworth and Geraldine Jewsbury, AMS Press, 1975, 2 vols.
1: 291-2

Perhaps 16 April 1859

Sydney Morgan died in London, with a pen more or less in her hand,
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
239
after suffering a chill.
Todd and the ODNB give the date as 13 April, and Shattock as 14 April. ODNB does not cite either Newcomer or Campbell.
Newcomer, James. Lady Morgan the Novelist. Bucknell University Press and Associated University Presses, 1990.
11

Biography

Birth

Christmas Day, perhaps 1776

Sydney Owenson was born: probably in Dublin although possibly, with happy symbolism, on board ship crossing the Irish Sea.
The exact birthdate remains uncertain: throughout her life she was reticent about her age.
Newcomer, James. Lady Morgan the Novelist. Bucknell University Press and Associated University Presses, 1990.
9
Literary historian Joanne Shattock argued for 25 December 1783; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives 1778.
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press, 1993.
Biographer Mary Campbell favours Christmas Day, 1776, and notes that the boat story was early current among her father's acting friends, but that her own Memoirs say unequivocally that she was born in Dublin.
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
1, 16-17
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
1, 17

Please click on login button to check your access and/or enter your credentials. Alternatively if you don’t have access, please click on “Subscribe”.

Log inSubscribe