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.

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Connections

Connections	Author name Sort ascending	Excerpt
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...
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...
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	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, 1985. 10
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...
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...
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...
Friends, Associates	Sydney Owenson Lady Morgan	In France in 1829, Morgan visited at the top of the social spectrum, represented by Baron James de Rothschild : Rothschild's celebrated chef, Marie-Antoine Carême (whose list of employers included the Prince Regent), made a...

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Texts

Reynolds, Frederic Mansel et al., editors. The Keepsake. Hurst, Chance; R. Jennings, 30 vols.

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

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of. The Magic Lantern. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1822.

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of. The Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre. B. Tauchnitz, 1846.

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of. The Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre. Richard Bentley, 1846, 3 vols.

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of. The Repealers. Richard Bentley, 1833, 3 vols.

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of. The Two Friends. Saunders and Otley, 1835, 3 vols.

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of. The Victims of Society. Saunders and Otley, 1837, 3 vols.

Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of. The Works of Lady Blessington. E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1838, 2 vols.