Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

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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.
Painting of Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, by Thomas Lawrence, 1822. She sits in a red chair with an ermine cloak beside her, wearing an ivory dress with short puff sleeves and low décolleté with a sprig of flowers. Her dark, lustrous hair is smoothed tightly back into loops behind her head.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
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
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.
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Timeline

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Texts

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Magic Lantern. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1822.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre. B. Tauchnitz, 1846.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre. Richard Bentley, 1846.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Repealers. Richard Bentley, 1833.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Two Friends. Saunders and Otley, 1835.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Victims of Society. Saunders and Otley, 1837.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington,. The Works of Lady Blessington. E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1838.