Life
?1690-?1757 [pseud. ‘Sapphira’]; m. Jonathan Barber,
English-born draper on Capel St., Dublin; begun writing for her four children;
a member of Swift's circle and described by him as ‘a virtuous modest
gentlewoman, with a great deal of good sense’ and a ‘poetical
genius’; with his encouragement, issued Poems on Several Occasions
(1734) containing 115 poems, published by subscription incl. that of Samuel
Richardson; was friendly with Laetitia Pilkington and Constantia Grierson
(also members of Swift’s ‘female senate’); she was on friendly
terms with the Viceroy Lord Carteret and with Dr. Patrick Delany as well
as John Boyle (Earl of Orrery), to whom she dedicated her Poems (1734);
published Swift’s Polite Conversations (1738) at his behest
and lived tolerably well on proceeds; suffered gout and rheumatism throughout
her life; d. Dublin; a son, Constantine became President of College of
Surgeons (Dublin); another son, Rupert, became a painter and engraver.
RR CAB DNB PI DIW FDA ATT OCIL DIL
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Works
Poems on Several Occasions: The Works of Mary Barber (London: C.
Rivington MDCCXXXIV [1734], rep. 1735), lxiv, 290, [13] pp., 8o.; rep.
as The Poetry of Mary Barber, ed. Bernard Tucker (Lewiston: Lampeter
E. Mellen Press 1992); Poems on Several Occasions (London: C. Rivington
1934).
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- Oliver W Ferguson, ‘The Authorship of "Apollo’s Edict"’, PMLA, 70 (1955), pp.433-40;
- Andrew Carpenter, ‘On a manuscript of poems catalogued as by Mary Barber in the Library of TCD’, Hermathena, 109 (1969), pp.54-64;
- Joyce Fullard, ‘Mary Barber ["Sapphira"]’ in Janet Todd, ed., A Dictionary of British and American Women Writers 1600-1800 (London: Methuen 1984), p.38;
- Carpenter, ‘"Our Chief Poetess": Mary Barber and Swift’s Circle", in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 19, 2, (Dec. 1993), pp.31-44;
- Bernard Tucker, ‘"Swift’s Female Senate", Three Forgotten Poets’, in Irish Studies Review, No. 7 (Summer 1994), pp.7-10.
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Notes
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821),
Vol. I, contains a biographical sketch (p.28).
Roger Lonsdale, ed. Eighteenth-century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology (OUP 1989), selects several poems.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, selects "An Epigram on the Battle of the Books", p. 455, and "On Sending My Son, as a Present, to Dr Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, on his Birth-day", pp.458-59.
Belfast Public Library holds a copy of Poems (MDCCXXXIV) [1734].
Bio-dates: The dates of Mary Barber's life are uncertain. Estimates
for her birth range from 1690 to 1712, with the earlier being more probable,
and from 1755 to 1757 for her death.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)