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Frances Browne (16 January 1816 – 21 August 1879) was an Irish poet and novelist, best remembered for her collection of short stories for children, ''Granny's Wonderful Chair''.


Early life

She was born at
Stranorlar Stranorlar () is a town, townland and civil parish in the Finn Valley of County Donegal, in Ireland. Stranorlar and Ballybofey (located on the other side of the River Finn) form ''the Twin Towns''. Transport The town is located at the junctio ...
, in
County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconn ...
, Ireland, the seventh child in a family of twelve children. She was blind as a consequence of an attack of smallpox when she was 18 months old. In her writings, she recounts how she learned by heart the lessons which her brothers and sisters said aloud every evening, and how she bribed them to read to her by doing their chores. She then worked hard at memorising all that she had heard. She composed her first poem, a version of "The
Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
", when she was seven years of age.Biography of Frances Brown, from the Preface to ''Granny's Wonderful Chair''
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First publications

In 1841, Browne's first poems were published in the ''Irish Penny Journal'' and in the '' ''London Athenaeum''''. One included in the ''Irish Penny Journal'' was the lyric "Songs of Our Land", which can be found in anthologies of Irish patriotic verse. She published a complete volume of poems in 1844 and a second volume in 1847. The provincial newspapers, especially the Belfast-based ''Northern Whig'', reprinted many, and she became widely known as 'The Blind Poetess of Ulster'. In 1845, she made her first contribution to the popular magazine ''
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal ''Chambers's Edinburgh Journal'' was a weekly 16-page magazine started by William Chambers in 1832. The first edition was dated 4 February 1832, and priced at one penny. Topics included history, religion, language, and science. William was so ...
'', for which she wrote for the next 25 years. The first story of hers published there, in March 1845, was "The Lost New Year's Gift", which tells of a poor dressmaker in London and exemplifies her story-telling abilities. She also contributed short stories to magazines with a largely female readership, for example, a number in the 1850s to the ''Ladies' Companion'', a magazine read by many well-to-do women of the Victorian era. Stories she contributed there included the amusing "Mrs Sloper's Swan" and an eerie tale set in
County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of 1,691 km2 (653 sq mi) and has a population of 61,805 a ...
, called "The Botheration of Ballymore".


Emigration to Edinburgh

In 1847, she left Donegal for
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
with one of her sisters as her reader and amanuensis. She quickly established herself in literary circles, and wrote essays, reviews, stories, and poems, in spite of health problems. In 1852, she moved to London, where she wrote her first novel, ''My Share of the World'' (1861). Her best known work, ''Granny's Wonderful Chair'', was published in 1856, remains in print to this day, and has been translated into several languages. It is a richly imaginative collection of fairy stories. It was also in 1856 that her third volume of poetry appeared – ''Pictures and Songs of Home''. This was directed at very young children and contains beautiful illustrations. The poems focus on her childhood experiences in County Donegal and provide evocative descriptions of its countryside.


London and later life

After her move to London, Browne wrote frequently for the
Religious Tract Society The Religious Tract Society was a British evangelical Christian organization founded in 1799 and known for publishing a variety of popular religious and quasi-religious texts in the 19th century. The society engaged in charity as well as commerci ...
's periodicals '' The Leisure Hour'' and ''
The Sunday at Home ''Sunday at Home'' was a weekly magazine published in London by the Religious Tract Society beginning in 1854. It was one of the most successful examples of the "Sunday reading periodical, Sunday reading" genre of periodicals: inexpensive magazine ...
''. One of those in ''The Leisure Hour'' was "1776: a tale of the American War of Independence", which appeared on the centenary of that event in 1876. As well as describing some of the revolutionary events, it is a love story and beautifully illustrated. Her last piece of writing was a poem called "The Children's Day", which appeared in ''The Sunday at Home'' in 1879. Frances Browne died on 21 August 1879 at 19 St John's Grove,
Richmond upon Thames The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames () in southwest London forms part of Outer London and is the only London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas amalgamated under the London ...
. She was buried in
Richmond Cemetery Richmond Cemetery is a cemetery on Lower Grove Road in Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. The cemetery opened in 1786 on a plot of land granted by an Act of Parliament the previous year. The cemetery has been expand ...
on 25 August 1879.


Further reading

The most detailed biography is ''The Life and Works of Frances Browne'' by Patrick Bonar, self-published c. 2008. There is an analysis of some of her short stories in the 2008 ''Donegal Annual'': "Frances Browne and the Legends of Ulster" by Raymond Blair. Blair also edited an anthology of her poems, short stories and essays: ''The Best of Frances Browne'' (Limavady: Rathmore Books, c. 2012). Browne's career is treated by Paul Marchbanks in ''Irish Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide'', edited by Alexander G. Gonzalez (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood; Oxford: Harcourt Education, 2006). Thomas McLean examines her longest poem, "The Star of Attéghéi", and its relationship to the war in
Circassia Circassia (; also known as Cherkessia in some sources; ady, Адыгэ Хэку, Адыгей, lit=, translit=Adıgə Xəku, Adıgey; ; ota, چرکسستان, Çerkezistan; ) was a country and a historical region in the along the northeast ...
in a 2012 monograph, ''The Other East and Nineteenth-Century British Literature''. A brief entry on Browne appears in the ''Dictionary of Irish Biography'', published under the auspices of the
Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier learned society and one its leading cultural i ...
.


References


External links

* * *
''Granny's Wonderful Chair and Its Tales of Fairy Times''
by Frances Browne, introduced and illustrated by Katharine Pyle. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1916.
''Granny's Wonderful Chair''
by Frances Browne, illustrated by Florence White Williams. New York: The Saalfield Publishing Company, 1928; Illustration copyright not renewed.
Bibliography of Frances Browne's works
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Browne, Frances 1816 births 1887 deaths Irish blind people Irish women short story writers 19th-century Irish short story writers Irish women poets People from Stranorlar Irish folklorists Irish women novelists 19th-century Irish poets 19th-century Irish novelists 19th-century Irish women writers Burials at Richmond Cemetery