and
line engraving by
Robert Cooper, 1825, after
Samuel Lover She was one of the most vivid and hotly discussed literary figures of her generation. She began her career with a precocious volume of poems. She
collected Irish tunes, for which she composed the words, thus setting a fashion adopted with signal success by
Thomas Moore. and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was apparent, at once attracted attention. Another novel,
The Novice of St. Dominick (1806), was also praised for its qualities of imagination and description. But the book which made her reputation and brought her name into warm controversy was
The Wild Irish Girl (1806), in which she appeared as the ardent champion of her native country, a politician rather than a novelist, extolling the beauty of Irish scenery, the richness of the natural wealth of Ireland, and the noble traditions of its early history. Given the moral and intellectual strengths of her heroine, the novel's embodiment of Irish nationhood, Glorvina, it has also been described as "proto feminist". In
Catholic and
Liberal circles she often referred as Gloria or Glorvina..
Patriotic Sketches and Metrical Fragments followed in 1807. She published
The Missionary: An Indian Tale in 1811, revising it shortly before her death as
Luxima, the Prophetess.
Percy Bysshe Shelley admired
The Missionary intensely and Owenson's heroine is said to have influenced some of his own
orientalist productions. Miss Owenson entered the household of
John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn, and in 1812 — persuaded by Lady Abercorn, the former Lady Anne Jane Gore — she married the philosopher and surgeon to the household, Sir
Thomas Charles Morgan, but books continued to flow from her facile pen. A
blue plaque on the wall at the site of Lady Morgan's former home at
Kildare Street, Dublin states that she lived there from 1813 to 1837. A
Dublin Tourism brochure notes "Lady Morgan lived at No 35 (now No 39) Kildare Street. She gave lavish soirees and musical evenings at which
Thomas Moore and the violinist
Paganini were among the guests". In 1814 she produced her best novel, ''O'Donnell
. She was at her best in her descriptions of the poorer classes, of whom she had a thorough knowledge. Her elaborate study (1817) of France under the Bourbon Restoration was attacked with outrageous fury by John Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review, the author being accused of Jacobinism, falsehood, licentiousness, and impiety. Her heroines were violently removed from what Croker considered their proper sphere as "a useful friend, a faithful wife, a tender mother, and a respectable and happy mistress of a family". Owenson took her revenge indirectly in the novel Florence Macarthy
(1818) —translated into French by Jacques-Théodore Parisot—, in which a Quarterly'' reviewer, Con Crawley, is insulted with supreme feminine ingenuity.
Italy, a companion work to her
France, was published in 1821 with appendices by her husband. It was proscribed by the
King of Sardinia, the
Emperor of Austria and the
Pope, but
Lord Byron bore testimony to the justness of its pictures of life. The results of Italian historical studies were given in her
Life and Times of Salvator Rosa (1823). Then she turned again to Irish manners and politics with a matter-of-fact book on
Absenteeism (1825), and a romantic novel with political overtones, ''The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys
(1827). From William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, Lady Morgan obtained a pension of £300. During the later years of her long life she published The Book of the Boudoir
(1829), Dramatic Scenes from Real Life
(1833), The Princess
(1835), Woman and her Master
(1840), The Book without a Name
(1841), and Passages from my Autobiography'' (1859). In 1838, Sir Thomas and Lady Morgan moved to a new home on the
Cubitt estate,
Knightsbridge, near
Lowndes Square. Lady Morgan began a successful campaign to have a new gate opened into Hyde Park from Knightsbridge, the present day Albert Gate. Sir Thomas died in 1843, and Lady Morgan died on 14 April 1859 (aged about 82) and was buried in
Brompton Cemetery, London. ==Legacy==