Life
1848-1894 [pseud. of Elizabeth O. B. Casey]; b. 10 May, Slane, Co. Meath;
dg. Andrew Casey and former Miss Mills; lost sight at 11; sight restored
by Sir. William Wilde; contrib. to Nation. moved to London in 1873
or 1874, success declined, and finally relieved from Royal County Fund;
died in fire in Dublin, shortly after 59th birthday; listed as 10 may
1845-April 1894; alternative given as 1845-1892; wrote 2-vol. Illustrious
Irish Women (1877); also novels, A Woman Scorned, (1876); The
Way Women Love (1877); The Glen of Silver Birches, (1880) [var.
1899], et al. CAB PI JMC DIW SUTH OCIL
[ top ]
Works
A Woman Scorned, 3 vols. (London: Tinsley Bros. 1876), another
ed., (London: AH Moxon [1887]); Illustrious Irishwomen, 2 vols.
(Tinsley 1877); A Bunch of Shamrocks (London: Newman & Co.
1877); Molly Carew, 3 vols. (London: Tinsley Bros. [1879]); The
Glen of the Silver Birches, 2 vols. (London: Remington & Co. 1880);
My Sweetheart When a Boy [Moxon’s Select Novelettes, No. 1
(London: Moxon [1880]); As the Crow Flies [Moxon’s Select
Novelettes, No. 4 (London: Moxon [1880]); The Love that Loves Alway
(London: F.V. White & Co. 1881); The Heart of Erin, 2 vols.
(London: Sampson, Low 1882); Con O’Donnell, and other Legends
and Poems for Recitation (London: 1890); also Aunt Delia’s
Heir; In the Vale of Honey; Shadows in the Sunlight;
A Modern Parnassus; The Way Women Love; A Chronicle of
Barham.
[ top ]
Notes
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical
Dictionary, (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); lists Con O’Donnell,
and Other Legends and Poems for Recitation, Lon. 1890; Elizabeth O.
B. Casey, better known as E. Owens Blackburne, author of clever novels
and IIlustrious Irish Women (1877) [in Nat Lib., Dublin]. Regained
sight after treatment by Sir. William Wilde. Speranza and Centlivre [note
error, in Centlivre, infra] are among her Illustrious Irishwomen.
Short and briefly successful career in London; died in fire in Dublin,
1894.
John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction, (Harlow: Longmans 1988); notes that she lost and recovered her sight; was a brilliant student at TCD; moved to London in 1874; born Elizabeth Owens [sic]; wrote under pen-name ‘Blackburne’; her novels have Irish settings and conventional melodramatic plots.
Brian McKenna, Irish literature, 1800-1875: a Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978) gives a description of Vol. 2: “Literary Women”, incl. Lady Dufferin, Maria Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, and Mary Tighe.
Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature (London, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast & Edinburgh: Blackie & Son [1876-78]) contains extract from ‘Biddy Brady’s Banshee’;also anthologised in and Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904).
Belfast Public Library holds Illustrious Irishwomen [which includes essays on Centlivre, Clive, Lady Louisa Connelly [for ?Connoly], Sarah Curran, Lady Morgan, Felicia Hemans, Charlotte Brooke and Maria Edgeworth et al.].
Belfast Public Library holds Life of the Rt. Honourable Francis Blackburne, Lord Chancellor (1874) by E. Blackburne; this volume is by the son of the title-name. It incidentally includes a Unionist history of law in Ireland in the preface. Stern stuff.
National Library of Ireland holds Women Writers [check title] which includes English and Continental names.
Irish Stories [n.d.], An anonymous collection of moral tales for
children held in the Belfast Central Library has been ascribed to her
in pencil on the title-page.
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)