Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
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, remains best known for her fierce Irish Nationalist poems published in the Nation under the pseudonym Speranza. She became known too for her translations of both poetry and fiction. Her literary output, often published first in periodicals, also included travel writing, literary criticism, essays, leaders, and two collections of Irish folklore. After the death of her
, she wrote primarily to support herself. Despite her substantial oeuvre spanning the mid to late Victorian periods, and her influence in both Dublin and London through her famous salons, her work has largely been forgotten even by Irish literary historians, and her career shadowed by that of her youngest son,
.
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Biography
The form Lady Jane Wilde, used for recent editions of her correspondence, is incorrect; it wrongly implies that she was the daughter of a nobleman.
never used her first name, except for inconsequential correspondence. She was probably christened Frances (as was an elder sister who died) and later italianized it. She also developed a rich etymology for her surname, deriving Elgee from a supposed Italian form, Alighieri, which enabled her to claim an unlikely link with
. To
, translator of Dante, she signed herself Francesca Speranza Wilde. Her pseudonym developed out of her personal motto Fidanza, Speranza, Constanza (faith, hope, constancy). She signed cover letters to the Nation with the pseudonym John Fenshaw Ellis.