Adelaide O'Keeffe

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AOK was first heard of by name in 1804 as a writer of highly successful verse for children; she had already in all probability edited her father 's dramatic works. She went on to do distinguished and unusual work of her own as novelist, writer of biblical paraphrase, and author of instructive works (particularly on history and geography), as well as editing her father's plays.
  • BirthName: Adelaide D. O'Keeffe
    She wrote her first name in various forms ranging from Adélaïde to Adelaïde, and used the initial D. only sometimes, e.g. on the title-page of Patriarchal Times, 1811: it is not known what the D. stood for. Some commentators mis-spell her surname with only one f.

  • Self-constructed: Miss O'Keeffe
    This form was still unusual for an adult, since Mrs remained fairly current as a term of respect for single as well as married women.

Milestones

5 November 1776

AOK was born in Eustace Street, Dublin.
O’Donoghue, David James. The Poets of Ireland. Gale Research, 1968.
358

September 1796

AOK wrote the dedication, in a poetical address, of her novel Llewellin: A Tale to the eight-month-old Princess Charlotte (after which the novel took another three years to get published).
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
1: 754

By 4 March 1854

AOK published a historical novel, The Broken Sword, which seems to be her final work.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
1375 (4 March 1854): 277

September 1865

AOK , approaching ninety, died in obscurity.
This date was not known until recently; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography speculatively dates her death as a decade earlier.
Archives of the Royal Literary Fund, 1790-1918.

Biography

Birth and Family

5 November 1776

AOK was born in Eustace Street, Dublin.
O’Donoghue, David James. The Poets of Ireland. Gale Research, 1968.
358