Sydney Owenson Lady Morgan

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Standard Name: Morgan, Sydney Owenson,,, Lady
Birth Name: Sydney Owenson
Titled: Lady Sydney Owenson
Married Name: Lady Sydney Morgan
Pseudonym: S. O.
Nickname: Glorvina
Nickname: The Wild Irish Girl
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.
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.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Rosina Bulwer Lytton Baroness Lytton
Despite her Irish birth, she disliked and distanced herself from the Irish: Anna Maria Hall 's husband, Samuel Carter Hall , reported her saying that she needed to fumigate her dining-room after entertaining Daniel O'Connell
death George Gordon sixth Baron Byron
His body was brought back to England (contrary to his expressed wishes), where dissension arose over his funeral. His sister wanted it to be private and aristocratic, while public opinion (though not the establishment) wanted...
death Lady Caroline Lamb
LCL died at Melbourne House in London; she left to Sydney Morgan her portrait of Byron and some of his letters.
Her biographer Douglass dates her death as the 25th, while the Oxford Dictionary...
death Geraldine Jewsbury
She was buried in Lady Morgan 's vault in Brompton Cemetery.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Mercer, Edmund. “Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury”. Manchester Quarterly, Vol.
17
, 1898, pp. 301-21.
314
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin, 1935.
xi, 199
Dedications Elizabeth Helme
EH dedicated this to the Marchioness of Abercorn (later a patron of Sydney Morgan ). A review appeared in January 1804. Isabelle de Montolieu made a free translation of this novel into French in 1808...
Education Mary Russell Mitford
MRM was said to have learned to read by the time she was three. In January 1806 she got through fifty-five volumes, including books by Sarah Harriet Burney , Maria Edgeworth , Elizabeth Hamilton ,...
Family and Intimate relationships Mary Boyle
The Honourable Sir Courtenay Boyle , MB 's father, the second surviving son of Edmund, seventh Earl of Cork and Orrery , was a Vice-Admiral.
Boyle, Mary. Mary Boyle. Her Book. Editor Boyle, Sir Courtenay Edmund, E. P. Dutton; John Murray, 1902.
4
One of his postss was commissioner of the dockyards...
Family and Intimate relationships Ella Hepworth Dixon
EHD 's father, a Yorkshireman named William Hepworth Dixon , was the editor of the Athenæum from 1853 to 1869 and wrote several novels. He was lionized by London society after the publication of...
Family and Intimate relationships Harriette Wilson
Two years later Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte told Sydney Morgan that HW was married to a very handsome man, who was willing to make an honest woman of her.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Editors Dixon, William Hepworth and Geraldine Jewsbury, W. H. Allen, 1862, 2 vols.
2: 223
The couple concealed their marriage...
Family and Intimate relationships Olivia Clarke
Olivia was a tomboy who used to tease her elder sister, Sydney , for her sensibility and her admirers (showing something of the anarchic humour that later went into her verse).
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Editors Dixon, William Hepworth and Geraldine Jewsbury, AMS Press, 1975, 2 vols.
1: 194
After Sydney...
Friends, Associates L. E. L.
By the time LEL began living alone, she was well-known in literary circles. She became a good friend of Emma Roberts and Rosina Bulwer-Lytton around this time, and gradually became a recognized London public figure...
Friends, Associates Adelaide O'Keeffe
AOK 's literary friendships with Sydney, Lady Morgan , and with Jane Porter were carried on, perforce, largely by letter.
O’Keeffe, Adelaide, and John O’Keeffe. “Memoirs”. O’Keeffe’s Legacy to his Daughter, edited by Adelaide O’Keeffe and Adelaide O’Keeffe, G. Whittaker, 1834, p. x - xxxv.
xi
Friends, Associates Eliza Lynn Linton
Eliza Lynn met a number of women authors who were once applauded but later complacently forgotten . . . . as literary fossils.
Linton, Eliza Lynn, and Beatrice Harraden. My Literary Life. Hodder and Stoughton, 1899.
85
She contended that Women who wrote were then few and far...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Ham
Among the many officers visiting the Ham family at Ardnaree was Napier , later the author of the History of the Peninsular War. He had little disputes
Ham, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Ham, by Herself, 1783-1820. Editor Gillett, Eric, Faber and Faber, 1945.
103
with EH about politics and religion...
Friends, Associates Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis
SFG was visited during the Revolution by Helen Maria Williams (who mentioned her works with respect in print). After her final return to France the flocks of visiting Britons who continued to seek her out...

Timeline

30 May 1782: The Duke of Portland, Lord Lieutenant of...

National or international item

30 May 1782

The Duke of Portland , Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, announced in the House of Lords a new Bill of Rights for Ireland: the Dublin Parliament was freed from the rule of the British Privy Council

1810: The independence struggles of the Spanish...

National or international item

1810

The independence struggles of the Spanish empire in South America began in what is now Bolivia (which secured its independence by a battle of 9 December 1824).
Collier, Simon. “Old Iron-Arse”. London Review of Books, 9 Aug. 2001, pp. 30-1.
30
Haydn, Joseph. Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information. Editor Vincent, Benjamin, 23rd ed., Ward, Lock, 1904.

12 August-3 September 1821: The newly-crowned George IV visited Ireland...

National or international item

12 August-3 September 1821

The newly-crowned George IV visited Ireland (the first British monarch to do so since William III made war there), and was rapturously received in Dublin.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Campbell, Mary, 1917 - 2002. Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. Pandora, 1988.
186-7

January 1833: The first issues appeared of two Irish monthly...

Writing climate item

January 1833

The first issues appeared of two Irish monthly periodicals: the successful Dublin University Magazine and the short-lived Dublin University Review, and Quarterly Magazine.
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press, 1966–1989, 5 vols.
4: 193-195, 196-7, 199, 206-7, 214
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.
Sadleir, Michael. “Dublin University Magazine: Its History, Contents and Bibliography”. The Bibliographical Society of Ireland, 1938, pp. 59-81.

Texts

Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. A Letter to the Reviewers of Italy. Henry Colburn, 1821.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Absenteeism. Henry Colburn, 1825.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Dramatic Scenes from Real Life. Saunders and Otley, 1833, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Florence Macarthy. Henry Colburn, 1818, 4 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady, and Sir Thomas Charles Morgan. France. Henry Colburn, 1817.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. France in 1829-30. Saunders and Otley, 1830, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady, and Sir Thomas Charles Morgan. Italy. Henry Colburn, 1821, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Editors Dixon, William Hepworth and Geraldine Jewsbury, W. H. Allen, 1862, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs. Editors Dixon, William Hepworth and Geraldine Jewsbury, AMS Press, 1975, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Letter to Cardinal Wiseman. Charles Westerton, 1851.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. O’Donnel. Henry Colburn, 1814, 3 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Passages From My Autobiography. Richard Bentley, 1859.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Patriotic Sketches of Ireland. R. Phillips, 1807, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. Poems. Alexander Stewart; Phillips, 1801.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. “Preface”. Lady Morgan’s Memoirs, edited by William Hepworth Dixon, W. H. Allen, 1862, p. iii - v.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. St. Clair. E. Harding , 1803.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. The Book of the Boudoir. Henry Colburn, 1829, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sir Thomas Charles, and Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan. The Book Without a Name. Henry Colburn, 1841, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. The Lay of an Irish Harp. Richard Phillips, 1807.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady, and Salvator Rosa. The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa. Henry Colburn, 1824, 2 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. The Missionary. J. J. Stockdale, 1811, 3 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. The Novice of Saint Dominick. Richard Phillips, 1806, 4 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. The O’Briens and the O’Flahertys. Henry Colburn, 1827, 4 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. The Princess. Richard Bentley, 1835, 3 vols.
Morgan, Sydney Owenson, Lady. The Wild Irish Girl. Richard Phillips, 1806, 3 vols.