Dorothea Herbert


Life
1770-1806; eldest of six children of Rev. Nicholas Herbert and his wife the Hon Martha [née] Cuffe (dg. of Lord Desart; m.1766; d.1811); lived in rectory at Carrick-on-Suir, in S. Tipperary; passed much time in other country houses and town houses of the Anglo-Irish gentry in Dublin; became infatuated with and believed herself to have been jilted by a certain John Roe heir of Rockwell nr. Knockgrafton in 1789 and remained unmarried; her diary, published as Retrospections in 1929-30 contains a memoir of the Rebellion; the MS continues to 1806 and was only published in half; it descended from her br. Nicholas (rector of Knockgrafton), to the Mandeville family; poems, plays and novels from her hand have not survived excepting her “Poetical Eccentricities [...] by an Oddity” and Journal Notes - being a continuation of Retrospections documenting her mental decline and her obsession of Roe - published by Frances Finnegan (Introspections, 2011); Retrospections was republished reissued with an introduction by Louis M. Cullen in 1988 (rep. 2004). [RIA]

[ top ]

Works
  • The Retrospections of Dorothea Herbert, pref., G[eoffrey] F[ortescue] M[andeville], 2 vols. (London: Gerald Howe 1929-40) [Vol. I: 1770-1789; Vol. II: 1789-1806], 2 lvs. of pls [i.e., MSS facs. as col. frontispieces], & gen. table; Do. [rep.], accompanying commentary [by] Louis M. Cullen (Dublin: Townhouse 1988), vii, 456pp, ill. 2 lvs. of pls; and Do., [rep.], foreword by Louis M. Cullen. (Dublin: TownHouse 2004), vii, 435pp.
  • Frances Finnegan, ed., Introspections: The Poetry & Private World of Dorothea Herbert (Piltown, Co. Kilkenny: Congrave Press 2011),  xiii, 335pp. [being "lost" writings incl. Poetical Eccentricities Written by an Oddity, poetry, and Journal Notes, a continuation of her Retrospections for 1806-07 [BL, QUB, TCD, & NLI].

Note: Poetical Eccentricities [... &c.] is available as a microfilm of the original at NLI - as infra.]

[ top ]

Criticism
  • Bridget Hourican, “Dorothea Herbert”, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA 2009.) Dublin:RIA, with Cambridge UP 2009) [availabel online]; Barbara Hughes, Between Literature and History: the Diaries and Memoirs of Mary Leadbeater and Dorothea Herbert [Reimagining Ireland] (Berne: Peter Lang 2010), 255pp.
  • Barbara Hughes, Between Literature and History: The Diaries and Memoirs of Mary Leadbeater and Dorothea Herbert. Oxford: Peter Lang 2010), pp.37–38;
  • Frances Finnegan, [ed.,] Introspections: The Poetry & Private World of Dorothea Herbert (Piltown, Co. Kilkenny: Congrave Press 2011) Mary Catherine Breen, “The Making and Unmaking of an Irish Woman of Letters” [PhD] (Linacre College, Oxford, 2012);
  • Liam Harte, A History of Irish Autobiography (Cambridge UP 2018), pp.59–60. (Available at Wikipedia - online; accessed 19.08.2024).

Note: Books Ireland notice of Barbara Hughes&#a146; book speaks of Herbert’s memoirs [i.e., Retrospections] as depicting her own descent into madness but also containing much information about the wider socierty around her. (See Books Ireland, May 2010, “First Flush”, p.116.)

[ top ]

Reference
A. N. Jeffares & Peter Van de Kamp, eds., Irish Literature: The Eighteenth Century - An Annotated Anthology (Dublin/Oregon: Irish Academic Press 2006), gives extracts from Retrospections, covering the years 1776, 1778, 1779, 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788 [381-91]

Wikipedia [synopsis]: Dorothea Herbert (c.1767–1829); eldest of nine children of Rev. Nicholas Herbert, rector of Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary and other parishes incl. Knockgrafton, and Martha, dg. of daughter of John Cuffe, Lord Desart; ed. as day-pupil at a boarding-school in Carrick with private tutors for dancing, French and music; wrote Retrospections - orig. as Retrospections of an Outcast, or the Reflections of Dorothea Herbert written in Retirement (2 vols., London: Gerald Howe, 1929-30), a valued source on Anglo-Irish social life; rejected a marriage proposal of her father’s curate John Gwynne, apparently on her mother’s instructions; developed an unrequited passion for John Roe, heir to Rockwell nr. Knockgrafton, whom she met when visiting that parish annually with her father over six years; believed herself betrayed by Roe and withdrew from society; barred from church attendance on account of her ‘profane conduct’; suffered the death of her ‘foster-mother’ (in fact a wet-nurse) at the hands of ‘Whiteboys’ in the 1798 Rebellion, followed by the natural deaths of a brother, Otway, and her father; remained unmarried and suffered nervous breakdown; wrote plays, novels and an opera; her Poetical Eccentricities Written by an Oddity, a volume of poetry, was published Frances Finnegan along with her Journal Notes (a continuation of her Retrospections) as Introspections: The Poetry & Private World of Dorothea Herbert (Piltown, Co. Kilkenny: Congrave Press 2011). Bibl., Bridget Hourican, “Dorothea Herbert”, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA 2009.) Dublin:RIA, with Cambridge UP 2009) [availabel online]; Barbara Hughes, Between Literature and History: The Diaries and Memoirs of Mary Leadbeater and Dorothea Herbert. Oxford: Peter Lang 2010), pp.37–38; Mary Catherine Breen, “The Making and Unmaking of an Irish Woman of Letters” [PhD] (Linacre College, Oxford, 2012); Liam Harte, A History of Irish Autobiography (Cambridge UP 2018), pp.59–60. (Available at Wikipedia - online; accessed 19.08.2024).]

Note: The allusion to ‘Whiteboys’ in the Wikipedia entry appears to quote her own term of reference to the insurgents in the Rebellion of 1798 - and is further described therein as ‘anti-landlord uprising’.

National Library of Ireland holds [inter al.] Poetical eccentricities by Dorothy Strangeways (Dorothea Herbert), c.1785 [microfilm] - online. Further listings and details as under Works - supra.

[ top ]