Elinor Sweetman (c. 1860/1861 – 1922) was a Victorian era Irish poet and author who worked with both her sisters.[1][2][3][4][5]

Elinor Sweetman
BornElinor Mary Sweetman
c. 1860/1861
County Laois
Died1922
Clontarf, County Dublin
OccupationWriter
NationalityBritish
Irish

Early life edit

Elinor Mary Sweetman was born in County Dublin to Michael James Sweetman (1829-1864), of Lamberton Park, Queen's County, JP, High Sheriff of Queen's County in 1852, and (Mary) Margaret, only child and heir of Michael Powell, of Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin. She had two brothers and three sisters. The Sweetman family were landed gentry of Longtown, County Kildare, and per family tradition were "long settled in Dublin" and "previously resident near Callan and Newtown, County Kilkenny", tracing their line back to the mid-1500s.

After her father's death, when she was a small child,[6] the remaining family moved to Brussels in 1873 and she spent her summers in Switzerland.[7] Her sisters, Agnes and Mary Elizabeth were also writers.[8] With her sisters she began two family magazines: the ‘Ivy Home Magazine’ and ‘Ivy Home Library’.Her poetry was used in several of her sisters' novels.[1][9][10] She remained unmarried and was one of her mother's heirs after her death in 1912.[11][5][10]

Sweetman was a poet and writer published in magazines and periodicals as well as in collections of poetry and her own folios. Her work was often illustrated by well known artists of the day including Arthur Wallis Mills and Elizabeth Gulland.[12][13][14] Though she has largely been ignored as a writer she was critically celebrated at the time and is a clear example of the poetry of women at the time discussing religion and romance.[15][16][17][18][19]

Selected works edit

  • Carmina Mariana; an English anthology in verse in honour of or in relation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Edited by Shipley, Orby, 1832-1916, ed; Publication date 1894; Publisher London, New York : Burns and Oates
  • Footsteps of the Gods and other poema (1893)
  • Pastorals and other poems (1899)
  • The wild orchard (1911)
  • Psalms, verse (1911)
  • The Oxford Book Of Victorian Verse (1912)
  • Alfred Perceval Graves (1972). The Book of Irish Poetry, Edited with an Introd. Books for Libraries Press. ISBN 978-0-8369-6345-8.

Further reading edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b "Dictionary of Irish Biography - Cambridge University Press". dib.cambridge.org.
  2. ^ Walter E. Houghton; Jean Harris Slingerland (1989). The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press. pp. 142–. ISBN 978-0-8020-2688-0.
  3. ^ "At the Circulating Library Author Information: Elinor Castle". www.victorianresearch.org.
  4. ^ James H. Murphy (13 January 2011). Irish Novelists and the Victorian Age. Oxford University Press. pp. 138–. ISBN 978-0-19-959699-7.
  5. ^ a b Lucy Collins (8 June 2012). Poetry by Women in Ireland: A Critical Anthology 1870-1970. Oxford University Press. pp. 265–. ISBN 978-1-84631-723-1.
  6. ^ A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, sixth edition, vol. II, Sir Bernard Burke, Harrison (Pall Mall), 1882, p. 1554
  7. ^ "M. E. Francis". www.ricorso.net.
  8. ^ Burke's Irish Family Records, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1976, p. 196
  9. ^ James H. Murphy (1997). Catholic Fiction and Social Reality in Ireland, 1873-1922. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 63–. ISBN 978-0-313-30188-9.
  10. ^ a b "Elinor Mary Sweetman". www.ricorso.net.
  11. ^ "Will probate" (PDF).
  12. ^ Sweetman, Elinor M (July 1907). "Grobinoff's Toys". The Pall Mall Magazine. Vol. 40, no. 171. pp. 41–47. ProQuest 6439817.
  13. ^ "Contents Lists". www.philsp.com. Archived from the original on 2 August 2018. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
  14. ^ "Contents Lists". www.philsp.com.
  15. ^ "POETRY.—Treasures of the Deep. By Robinson Elliot. (Elliot Stock.)—Mr. Elliot's » 1 Dec 1894 » The Spectator Archive". The Spectator Archive.
  16. ^ Colman, A. (1994). "Too Many Treasures Remain Veiled". The Irish Review (15): 131–133. doi:10.2307/29735744. JSTOR 29735744.
  17. ^ The Irish Monthly. 1891.
  18. ^ "SUPPLEMENT TO THE SPECTATOR,] July 16, 1892, » 2 Jan 1892 » The Spectator Archive". The Spectator Archive.
  19. ^ The Irish Monthly. McGlashan & Gill. 1892.

External links edit


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