Harriet Jay

Life
fl. 1876; sister-in-law and adopted dg. of Robert Buchanan; lived for a time in Co. Mayo; issed The Queen of Connaught (1881), concerning an Engilsh who marries a girl of old Western family, and tries unsuccessfully to reform the Connaught peasantry; includes a police chase over the snowy mountains; The Dark Colleen (1876), in which an Irish girl marries a Frenchman washed up on the west coast, and pursues him to France after he deserts her; The Priest’s Blessing (1881), a sectarian sketch of life in the West of Ireland; My Connaught Cousins (1883) is narrated as stories by Jack Kenmare who visits his uncle in Connaught and becomes engaged to one of the cousins of the title. IF

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Works
The Queen of Connaught (London: Chatto & Windus 1875); The Dark Colleen (London: Bentley 1876); The Priest’s Blessing: or, oor Patrick’s Progress from this World to a Better (London: F. V. White 1881); My Connaught Cousins, with a preface by Robert Buchanan, 3 vol. (London: L F. V. White & Co. 1883) [IF]

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References
Ireland in Fiction, ed. Stephen Brown (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), notes that The Priest’s Blessing (1881)is ‘objectionable ... from a Catholic point of view’ and ‘very hostile to the priesthood in Ireland’ as containing heavy drinking clergy who incite peasants to murder and maintain them in ‘bovine ignorance’; ‘can only be described as “Orange”.’

British Library holds A Marriage of Convenience: A tale, 3 vol. (London: F. V. White & Co. 1885), 8o.; [2] Madge Dunraven: A tale by the author of The Queen of Connaught, & [1881.] 8o.; [3] My Connaught Cousins, with a preface by Robert Buchanan, 3 vol. (London: L F. V. White & Co. 1883 [1882]. 8o.; [4] Robert Buchanan. Some account of his life, his life's work and his literary friendships. London: T. Fisher Unwin 1903), xii, 324pp.,. 8o. [5] The Dark Colleen ... By the author of ‘The Queen of Connaught’ [i.e. H. J.]. 1878. 8o.; [6] The Priest’s Blessing: or, poor Patrick’s progress from this world to a better. [A tale.]. x, 308pp. (London: F. V. White and Co. 1881), 8o.; [7] The Queen of Connaught, etc. [By H. J.]; [8] The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown (London: R. Buchanan 1897), 250pp., 8o.; [9] Through the Stage Door: A novel, 3 vol. (London: F. V. White & Co. 1883), 8o.; [10] Two Men and a Maid: A Tale, 3 vol. (London: White & Co. 1881), 8o. [White titles printed Edinburgh.]

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