Life
1849-1916; née Mary Laffan; b. 3 May, 41 Phillipsburgh AVe., Clontarf (Dublin), 2nd child & eldest dg. of a Catholic father and Protestant
mother, Michael Laffan and Ellen Saran [née Fitzgibbon]; raised Catholic; moved to 4 Cross Ave., Blackrock; ed. Dominican Convent, Sion Hill; d. of Mrs. Laffan, 1861; d. of Ellen Sarah, her dg.; proceeded to Alexandra College; poss. spent time in France; acted as volunteer social worker in the Liberties with Fr. C. P. Meehan; contrib. article on ‘Convent Boarding Schools for Young Ladies’ to Frazer’s Magazine (June 1874), criticising the regime; issued Hogan MP (1876), an Irish retelling of the Faustian them; issued The Hon. Miss Ferrard (1877), a tale of growing up in Ireland in which the vulnerability
of Protestant proprietors to the antagonism of their Catholic tenants
is conveyed through the predicament of the title character, Helen, an
Irish land-owner; issued Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor (1879), together with The Game Hen, accounts of poverty in Dublin, and Baubie Clarke, concerning a street singer in Edinburgh; Flitters led to an admiring letter from John Ruskin [printed in his Correspondence]; trans. Hector Malot’s San Famille as No Relations (1880); fnd.-member of Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1880; m. Walter Noel Hartley, chemist of King’s College and FRS, 1882; moved to Ballsbridge; engaged in promoting High School for Irish Catholic Girls; ceased writing during her marriage; issued Ismay’s Children (1887), set in Paris and prob. written by 1882; issued A Singer’s Story, also set in Paris; a son, Walter John, b. 1889, became lect. in bacteriology in Cardiff and d. at Gallipoli. 1915; Admitted to Bloomfield Hosp., 1910; Walter Hartley knighted 1911 and d. suddenly 1913; May d. 23 June; highly praised by T. P. O’Connor in his additional vol. to Read’s Cabinet (1880); author’s correspondence held by Macmillan & Co. CAB JMC IF SUTH OCIL
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Works
Hogan, M.P. (London: Macmillan 1876); The Hon. Miss Ferrard (1877;
2nd edn. London: Macmillan 1881); The Game Hen; Flitters, Tatters,
and the Counsellor: Three Waifs from the Dublin Streets (1879; 2nd
edn. London: Simpkin & Marshall 1883), Do., facs. rep. edn. (NY Garland
1979); Ismay’s Children (1887); Christy Carew (1880;
London: Macmillan 1882). Reprint, Flitters[... &c.] and Hogan (NY:
Garland Press 1979).
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Criticism
Helen Kelleher Kahn, ‘May Laffan Hartley’, in Blackrock Society: Proceedings 2003 [2004], pp.112-14 [infra].
Maurice Francis Egan, ‘On Irish Novels’, in Catholic
University Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 3 (July 1904), 329-41.
James H. Murphy, Catholic Fiction and Social Reality in Ireland, 1873-1922 (Conn: Greenwood Press 1997), Part I: ‘Upper Middle-Class Fiction 1873-1890’, pp.28-29, 44.
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Notes
Justin McCarthy, Irish Literature (1904), treats her as
contemporary and gives ‘An Electioneering Scene’ from Hogan
MP.
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919) lists novels, Hogan, M.P. (1876); The Hon. Miss Ferrard (1877; 2nd edn. London Macmillan 1881); The Game Hen; Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor (1879; rep. 1883) Ismay’s Children (1887); Christy Carew (1880). Hartley is briefly cited in Barry Sloan, Pioneers of Anglo-Irish Fiction, for Hogan MP, an electioneering novel. She is anthologised and highly praised by T. P. O’Connor in his add. vol. to Read’s Cabinet.
John Sutherland, Companion to Victorian Literature (London: Longman 1988): husband was knighted, 1911; possibly separated from her, or died young; Hogan, a venal Home Rule MP; quotes Spectator review, ‘we have seldom have had to read through a modern novel which left a worst taste behind than this’; Christy Carew denounces hostility to mixed marriage; later works little more than ‘sketch books interlarded with pathos.’
Belfast Central Library holds Flitters, Tatters and the Counsellor (1895); Hogan, M.P. (1881); The Hon. Miss Ferrard (1881); Ismay’s Children (1887), all fiction.
Barry Sloan, Pioneers of Anglo-Irish Fiction, cites Hogan
MP, an electioneering novel; James Cahalan, Irish Novel, cites
Hogan MP as an example of the Dublin regional novel (p.78).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)