Augusta Gregory

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Standard Name: Gregory, Augusta
Birth Name: Isabella Augusta Persse
Married Name: Isabella Augusta Gregory
Titled: Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory
Pseudonym: Angus Grey
Pseudonym: An Irish Landlord
Used Form: Lady Augusta Gregory
Augusta Gregory was a highly energetic and creative force in the Irish Literary Revival, which began in the late nineteenth century. Material from her collections and translations of Irish folklore, epics, and oral poetry inspired new literary works by herself and others. At the age of fifty, she began writing plays for the Abbey Theatre , which she co-founded and co-directed. Her skill at rendering idiomatic conversation, honed through years of listening to the stories told to her by country people in county Galway, is evident throughout her writing. In addition to her drama and folklore, Lady Gregory wrote several articles on Irish politics and culture, two memoirs, a history of the Abbey Theatre, diaries, and an autobiography. As a nationalist with an identity grounded in the ruling class, she can be seen as a colonialist reformer.

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Lady Cynthia Asquith
Her husband took great interest in other women and was frequently unfaithful. Having married him somewhat reluctantly, she, too, conducted an emotional life elsewhere: Beauman writes that she became pregnant by the writer Wilfrid Blunt
Literary responses Charlotte Brooke
CB was warmly appreciated in Ireland. She influenced there a parallel effort to preserve traditional music as she had preserved traditional words: that of Edward Bunting , who edited in 1796 the first volume...
Family and Intimate relationships Leonora Carrington
Like her mother, LC took pride in her maternal family history and enjoyed her experiences with relatives, especially her grandmother Mary Monica Moorhead . From her maternal grandmother LC learned about their genealogical connection to...
Occupation Florence Farr
The lecture proved quite popular, and Clifford's Inn had to turn people away. Over the following years, FF put on many such readings, performing works by Homer , Shelley , Yeats , Lady Gregory ...
Family and Intimate relationships Florence Farr
They separated after four years, when Emery left for America. He became a successful actor there, and eventually remarried. Their reasons for separating are not clear, and FF rarely mentioned him after he left. Years...
Textual Production Maud Gonne
The United Irishman published the text of MG 's own play, Dawn, A Play in One Act and Three Tableaux, about the Great Famine of the 1840s, two years after she appeared in the...
Textual Production Maud Gonne
MG published her ironically-titled autobiography, A Servant of the Queen. The queen here is not the British monarch, but Cathleen Ni Houlihan the mythological queen and personification of Ireland, whom MG played in...
Occupation Maud Gonne
MG played the heroine in Augusta Gregory 's and Yeats 's Cathleen ni Houlihan in the Irish National Theatre 's production, opening on 2 April 1902. This role made her a symbol of the nation.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
McGuire, James, and James Quinn, editors. Dictionary of Irish Biography. http://dib.cambridge.org/.
Friends, Associates Emily Lawless
Lawless made a number of other friends, acquaintances, and admirers through her writing, including Margaret Oliphant , an early friend and critic, Rhoda Broughton , George Meredith , Aubrey de Vere , Mary Augusta Ward
Friends, Associates Marie Belloc Lowndes
MBL was an early member of Mary Cholmondeley 's Give and Take Club for women writers, and a founding member of another women's luncheon club, the Thirty . This included women from all walks of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Kate O'Brien
KOB refers to women writers here and there in her text—casually to Daisy Ashford and Nancy Mitford , admiringly to Maria Edgeworth and Lady Gregory (the latter admittedly for her life rather than her writings)—and...
Textual Production Charlotte O'Conor Eccles
The first edition appears not to have survived. The League, founded on 31 July 1893 and associated with Augusta Gregory , had cultural aims originally but had also adopted a political role.
Friends, Associates Martin Ross
MR visited Lady Gregory 's estate of Coole Park in Galway, where she first met W. B. Yeats .
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
128
Reception Martin Ross
The Corinthian Dinner Committee of Dublin honoured Irish women writers including Edith Somerville , Martin Ross , Lady Gregory , Eva Gore-Booth , Emily Lawless , Susan Mitchell , and Katharine Tynan .
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
158-9
Leisure and Society Martin Ross
She also led a busy social life: she attended the wedding of Augusta, Lady Gregory .
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
22

Timeline

8 June 1847: The Irish Poor Law Extension Act was pas...

National or international item

8 June 1847

The Irish Poor Law Extension Act was passed.

May 1915: Irish art collector Hugh Lane, nephew of...

Building item

May 1915

Irish art collector Hugh Lane , nephew of Augusta Gregory , died suddenly by drowning, leaving his international art collection to the National Gallery of England, the Dublin National Gallery having earlier refused to...

Texts

Gregory, Augusta. A Book of Saints and Wonders. Dun Emer Press, 1906.
Gregory, Augusta. Coole. Cuala Press, 1931.
Gregory, Augusta. Cuchulain of Muirthemne. John Murray, 1902.
Malins, Edward, and Augusta Gregory. “Foreword”. Coole, edited by Colin Smythe, Dolmen Press, 1971, pp. 7-14.
Saddlemyer, Ann, and Augusta Gregory. “Foreword and History of First Productions”. The Comedies of Lady Gregory, Colin Smythe, 1970, p. v - xv.
Saddlemyer, Ann, and Augusta Gregory. “Foreword and History of First Productions”. The Tragedies and Tragic Comedies of Lady Gregory, Colin Smythe, 1970, p. v - xiii.
Gregory, Augusta. Gods and Fighting Men. John Murray, 1904.
Gregory, Augusta. Hyacinth Halvey. Maunsel, 1906.
Gregory, Augusta, editor. Ideals in Ireland. At the Unicorn, 1901.
McDiarmid, Lucy et al. “Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography”. Selected Writings, Penguin, 1995, pp. xi - xliv, 525.
Gregory, Augusta. Irish Folk-History Plays. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912.
Gregory, Augusta. Kincora. Maunsel, 1905.
Gregory, Augusta. Lady Gregory’s Journals, 1916-1930. Editor Robinson, Lennox, Putnam, 1946.
Gregory, William. Mr. Gregory’s Letter-Box, 1813-1830. Editor Gregory, Augusta, Smith, Elder, 1898.
Gregory, Augusta. My First Play. Elkin Mathews and Marrot, 1930.
Gregory, Augusta. New Comedies. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913.
Gregory, Augusta. Our Irish Theatre. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913.
Gregory, Augusta, and Douglas Hyde. Poets and Dreamers. Hodges, Figgis, 1903.
Gregory, Augusta. Poets and Dreamers. Cambridge University Press, 2010, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.
Gregory, Augusta. Selected Writings. Editors McDiarmid, Lucy and Maureen Waters, Penguin, 1995.
Gregory, Augusta. Seven Short Plays. Maunsel, 1909.
Gregory, Augusta. Seventy Years. Editor Smythe, Colin, Colin Smythe, 1974.
Gregory, Sir William Henry. Sir William Gregory. Editor Gregory, Augusta, John Murray, 1894.
Gregory, Augusta, and Douglas Hyde. Spreading the News; The Rising of the Moon; The Poorhouse. Maunsel, 1906.
Gregory, Augusta. The Dragon. Talbot Press, 1920.