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Life
1855-1897 [Margaret Wolfe Hungerford; pseud. “The Duchess”]; lived at Bandon, Co. Cork, dg. of a clergyman; twice married, the second occasion in 1883; 6 children; issued 32 novels, mostly anonymous; her first was Phyllis (1877), followed by Molly Bawn (1878) an Irish love-tale which made her name as a popular novelist; also An Unsatisfactory Lover (1894), and The O’Connors of Ballynahinch (1896). ODNB DIW IF/2 SUTH OCIL [no ATT]
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Works
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References
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists Molly Bawn (1878); Her Week’s Amusement (1885); A Little Irish Girl (1891); The O’Connors of Ballynahinch (1896); Nora Creina (1903); Folk Tales of Breffny (1913) IF2 adds A Modern Circe [3 vols.] (London: Ward & Downey 1887) [Mrs Dundas ... fatally attractive].
A. N. Jeffares, Anglo-Irish Literature (Macmillan 1980), cites Mrs. Hungerford, Molly Bawn.
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John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (Harlow: Longmans 1988); Mrs. Margaret Wolfe, ‘The Duchess’, née Hamilton, b. Co. Cork, f. Canon Fitzjohn Stannus Hamilton, Ross Cathedral clergy; twice married, to Edward Argles, 1872, and Thomas Hungerford, 1882; 30 novels; Molly Bawn (1878), a love tale with a light-headed Irish colleen; Irish tales incl. Her Week’s Amusement (1885); A Little Irish Girl (1891); Nor Wife Nor Maid (1892); The Red House Mystery (1893); The Hoyden (1894); insubstantial and frothy. Lady Verner’s Flight (1893) deals with the sufferings of an abused wife. Died of typhoid. BL 48.
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Elaine Showalter, A Literature of their Own (1984), lists her as a novelist, pseud. The Duchess; b. Co. Cork, dg. of Church of England clergyman; ed. at school; married twice, second time in 1883; had 6 children; published 32 novels, usually anonymously; first novel, Phyllis (1877); best known novel, Molly Bawn (1875) [sic err?].
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Catalogues
Belfast Public Library holds Little Irish Girl (1891); O’Connors of Ballinahinch (1896).
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Booksellers
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