Barbara Hemphill
Barbara Hemphill | |
|---|---|
| Born | Barbara Hare c. 1775 Golden, County Tipperary |
| Died | 5 May 1858 (aged 82–83) |
| Occupation | writer, novelist |
| Nationality | Irish |
Barbara Hemphill (c. 1775[1] - 5 May 1858) was an Irish writer of novels.
Life
Hemphill was the youngest child of the absentee clergyman, Patrick Hare, who was nominally responsible for the settlement of Golden, County Tipperary.[2] Her brother, Charles, was a fellow and tutor at Trinity College Dublin. Hemphill initially published her novels without identifying herself after being encouraged by the antiquary Thomas Crofton Croker.
She married John Hemphill, from Cashel, (died 1833) in 1807. They had five children, two sons and three daughters. The youngest of their children was the first Baron Hemphill.[3][4] Her great granddaughter was Constance Wilde.[5]
Hemphill's first published story was The Royal Confession, a Monastic Legend in the Dublin University Magazine (vol. 12, September 1838).[2] Her 1846 novel Lionel Deerhurst, was edited by the Countess Marguerite Blessington.[6] Hemphill is credited with three novels which she eventually published under her own name. Although it is suspected that there may be other unattributed works. A reviewer of The Priest's Niece, or, The Heirship of Barnulph in 1855 in Irish Quarterly Review described it as "full of incident, of invention, of bright flashes of genius, of descriptive power rarely excelled in those days" and that the author had "the true talent of the genuine novelist".[2]
Hemphill died on 5 May 1858 in her son's home, 6 Lower Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin. Her death was not noted by contemporary newspapers or journals.[2] She is commemorated on a mural tablet in St. John's Cathedral, Cashel.[7]
Works
- Lionel Deerhurst, or, Fashionable Life under the Regency, 1846
- The Priest's Niece, or, The Heirship of Barnulph, 1855
- Freida the Jongleur, 1857
References
- ^ "Author: Barbara Hemphill". www.victorianresearch.org. Retrieved 6 January 2026.
- ^ a b c d Brigitte Anton, ‘Hemphill, Barbara (d. 1858)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 6 Jan 2026
- ^ J. G. S. Macneill, ‘Hemphill, Charles Hare, first Baron Hemphill (1822–1908)’, rev. Terence A. M. Dooley, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 24 Jan 2015
- ^ Geoghegan, Patrick M. (2009). "Hemphill, Charles Hare". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 6 January 2026.
- ^ Edwards, Owen Dudley (2009). "Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 6 January 2026.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Schmid, Susanne (2013). British literary salons of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 228. ISBN 978-1137063748.
- ^ Bassett, George Henry (1889). Book of County Tipperary. Retrieved 6 January 2026.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Hemphill, Barbara". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.