Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

01 September 1789 - 04 June 1849

Standard Name: Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner,,, Countess of

Birth Name: Margaret Power

Married Name: Margaret Farmer

Self-constructed Name: Marguerite Gardiner

Indexed Name: Marguerite Gardiner

Married Name: Marguerite Gardiner

Titled: Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

Pseudonym: The Author of the Magic Lantern

Pseudonym: The Author of Sketches and Fragments

Used Form: Marguerite, Lady Blessington

Marguerite Blessington wrote non-fiction, poetry, and novels, many of them in the silver-fork category. Although she was a popular novelist in her day, well reviewed and respected by a number of other writers, her account of her conversations with Byron remains the work for which she is remembered. Other works combine memoir with travel writing. In accounts of the literary milieu she is remembered for her editorship of annuals in the 1830s and 1840s and as a brilliant literary hostess.

Full profile

Connections

Connections	Author name Sort descending	Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships	Dorothy Brett	Brett's paternal grandmother, Eugenie Brett née Meyer, had in youth frequented the salon of the writer Marguerite, Lady Blessington . Hignett, Sean. Brett. Franklin Watts. 10
Publishing	Frances Browne	After this journal ceased publication in 1841, she sent poems to the editor of the Athenæum instead, promising future contributions in exchange for a copy of the magazine. The editor accepted, and in the following...
Family and Intimate relationships	Augusta Ada Byron	Ada's father, the poet Lord Byron , is well known for his transgressive sexual behaviour of various kinds. His marriage to Lady Byron was shortlived: she left him twelve months after their wedding citing (and...
Reception	Eliza Cook	Reynolds's Miscellany printed an illustration of Lady Blessington , Eliza Cook , and Caroline Norton . Cook, in an open shirt and dark jacket, wears plainer and less feminine dress than the other two, whose...
Publishing	Camilla Crosland	The name of Camilla Toulmin (later CC ) appeared in print for the first time as the author of the poem The Parting in Heath's Book of Beauty, edited by Lady Blessington . Crosland, Newton. Rambles Round My Life. E. W. Allen. 346 Boyle, Andrew. An Index to the Annuals. Andrew Boyle. 292
Friends, Associates	Camilla Crosland	Her work for the annuals led to her connection with Lady Blessington and her niece Marguerite Power . Despite the disapproval of other friends she was a regular visitor to Blessington's home, Gore House...
Literary responses	Camilla Crosland	Marguerite Blessington wrote to her about two of her early contributions, the The Blind Girl's Lament (1839) and The Maniac (1840), informing her: I have rarely perused two more beautiful poems . . . and...
Textual Production	Camilla Crosland	Her other work for periodicals includes a short story, A Railroad Adventure, published in 1843 in Ainsworth's Magazine, as well as pieces in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, Bentley's Miscellany, the Illustrated London...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text	Camilla Crosland	Since she was well-connected in London literary circles, she was able to include in her memoir recollections of time spent working with the annuals and of literary figures such as Grace Aguilar , Lady Blessington
Textual Production	Harriet Downing	She had contributed More Poets on the Ice on 25 February 1835 to Leigh Hunt 's short-lived London Journal. C19: The Nineteenth Century Index. http://c19index.chadwyck.com/home.do. The anonymity of the series of nurse memoirs tantalized readers; it had a thousand and...
Occupation	Elizabeth, Margravine of Anspach	Richard Robert Madden , correspondent and biographer of Marguerite Blessington , observed EMA working in her garden at the Villa Cravenin very coarse and singular attire. He did not fail to comment on...
Friends, Associates	John Forster	JF was well connected in literary circles. He counted Elizabeth Gaskell , Lady Blessington , Jane Welsh Carlyle , Charles Dickens , Edward Bulwer Lytton and Leigh Hunt among his intimates. Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press.
Friends, Associates	George Gordon, sixth Baron Byron	His final exit from England was made in the company of Hobhouse , and on the shores of Lake Geneva he met up with Percy and Mary Shelley and Mary's step-sister Claire Clairmont , with...
Education	Elinor Glyn	Since she abhorred her governesses, Elinor took her education into her own hands, reading every book she could in the library: Pepys 's diary, Cervantes ' Don Quixote (an eighteenth-century French version), Scott , Agnes
Publishing	Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde	In March 1855, under her own name, JFLW published her review of R. R. Madden 's The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington in the Dublin University Magazine. The review was...

Timeline

March 1836

Walter Savage Landor published Pericles and Aspasia, a collection of imaginary letters between the Athenian statesman and the learned and cultivated courtesan.

By 12 May 1845

Benjamin Disraeli published his condition-of-England novelSybil, or The Two Nations.

Texts

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Conversations of Lord Byron. Richard Bentley, 1834.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Conversations of Lord Byron. J. C. Hotten, 1869.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Conversations of Lord Byron. Editor Lovell, Ernest J., Princeton University Press, 1969.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, and Marguerite A. Power. Country Quarters. W. Shoberl, 1850.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Desultory Thoughts and Reflections. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1839.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, and Edward Thomas Parris. Gems of Beauty. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1836.

L. E. L., and Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, editors. Heath’s Book of Beauty. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, editor. Heath’s Book of Beauty. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1839.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. “Introduction”. Conversations of Lord Byron, edited by Ernest J. Lovell, Princeton University Press, 1969, pp. 3-114.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Journal of a Tour through the Netherlands to Paris, in 1821. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822.

Hemphill, Barbara. Lionel Deerhurst; or, Fashionable Life under the Regency. Editor Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, Richard Bentley, 1846.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Marmaduke Herbert; or, The Fatal Error. Richard Bentley, 1847.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Meredith. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1843.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Rambles in Waltham Forest. Privately Printed by J. L. Cox, 1827.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Sketches and Fragments. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. Strathern; or, Life at Home and Abroad. H. Colburn, 1845.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, and Alfred Edward Chalon. The Belle of a Season. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1840.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, and Edmund Thomas Parris. The Confessions of an Elderly Gentleman. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1836.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Confessions of an Elderly Lady. Baudry, 1838.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, and Edmund Thomas Parris. The Confessions of an Elderly Lady. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1838.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Governess. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1839.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Idler in France. H. Colburn, 1841, http://U of T.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Idler in Italy. H. Colburn, 1839.

Reynolds, Frederic Mansel et al., editors. The Keepsake. Hurst, Chance; R. Jennings.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Lottery of Life. H. Colburn, 1842.