Life
1820-1903 [née Madden; common err. Mary Sadlier]; b. 31 Dec., Cootehill,
Co. Cavan; emig. Montreal, Canada, 1844, m. James Sadleir [of D &
J Sadleir], who managed the Montreal branch, 1846; Willie Burke, or
the Last Orphan in America (1850), in which Peter Burke is saved by
the good example of a brother; New Lights, or Life in Galway: A Tale
(1853), deals with the Irish famine and particularly condemns Protestant
proselytism among the victims; The Blake and the O’Flanagans
(1855), a cautionary tale in which the apostate Blakes marry Protestants
and die in agonies of apostasy and repentence; Bessy Conway; or, The
Irish Girl in America (1861) follows the heroine on the poineer trail
out west; moved to New York with her husband in the 1860s; contrib. La
Belle Assemblée, London journal; ed. Poems of Thomas
D’Arcy McGee, with intro. and biog. sketch by Mrs. J. Sadlier (Sadlier
NY, 1869); stories and serialised novels in Catholic weeklies; over 60
pop. novels with Irish backgrounds, including Hermit of the Rock of
Cashel, the Confederate Chieftains, etc.; d. 5 April. PI DIB DIW
DIL MKA JMC SUTH OCIL
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Works
Fiction, The Red Hand of Ulster: or the Fortunes of Hugh O’Neill
(NY: Patrick Donahoe 1850); The Blakes and the Flanagans: A Tale of
Irish Life in the United States (NY: Kenedy 1855; NY: Sadlier 1858);
Elinor Preston, Scenes at Home and Abroad (Sadlier 1861 [1866];
Old and New, or Taste versus Fashion (NY: Sadlier 1862); The
Hermit of the Rocks, A Tale of Cashel (NY, Boston & Montreal:
Sadlier 1863), another edn. [1893]; The Daughter of Tyrconnell, A Tale
of the Reign of James I (NY: Sadlier 1863); Bessy Conway or the
Irish Girl in America (NY: Sadlier 1863); The Fate of Father Sheehy:
A Tale of Tipperary, Eighty Years Ago (NY: Sadlier 1863); Confessions
of an Apostate, or Leaves from a Troubled Life (1864; rep. 1977);
Con O’Regan, or Emigrant Life in the New World (NY: Sadlier
1864); The Old House by the Boyne, or Recollections of an Irish Borough
(NY: Sadlier 1865); Aunt Honor’s Keepsake, A Chapter from Life
(NY: Sadlier 1865); The Heiress of Kilorgan, or Evenings with the Old
Geraldines (NY: Sadlier 1867); MacCarthy More, or The Fortunes
of an Irish Chief in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth [Parlour and College
Library Series] (NY: Sadlier 1868); Maureen Dhu, the Admiral’s
Daughter, A Tale of the Claddagh (NY: Sadlier 1870); Alice Riordan,
the Blind Man’s Daughter (Donahoe, Boston 1851); O’Byrne,
or the Expatriated (NY: Wildermann 1898); The Minister’s Wife
and Other Stories (NY: Wildermann 1898); The Confederate Chieftains,
A Tale of Irish Rebellion 1641 (Sadlier 1868 [1860]); New Lights;
or, Life in Galway: A Tale (NY: Sadlier 1853, 1867); Willie Burke,
or the Last Orphan in America (NY: Donahoe 1850) [var. Willy;
dates in square brackets given in Stephen Brown, Catholic Fiction;
list supplied by Maureen Murphy].
Miscellaneous, Benjamin, or the Pupil of the Christian Brothers, trans. (1852); Doctrinal and Scriptural Cathecism, trans. from P. Collet (1858); Idleness, or the Double Lesson and Other Tales [The Youth’s Catholic Library Series], trans. (NY 1862]; The Rules of Christian Politeness, trans from St. John, Baptist (1862); The Vendetta, and Other Tales, trans. [The Youth’s Catholic Library Series] (NY 1862); The Pope’s Niece and Other Tales, trans. [The Youth’s Catholic Library Series] (NY 1862); The Talisman, a drama in one act (NY 1863); The Year of Mary, ed., and part trans. from Menghi d’Arville [1865]; Tales and Stories, trans. from JA Walsh (1866); The Babbler, a drama for boys, in one act, adapted from French (NY 1868); The Secret, a drama (London: R Washbourne 1880); The Knout, a tale of Poland, trans. from French (Dublin: Gill & Son 1884); The Castle of Roussillon, trans. from La Rochere (1884); Alice Riordan, The Blind Man’s Daughter (Dublin: Gill & Son 1884); As Good as Gold, trans. from W. Herchenbach (1890).
Online: The “Mary Ann Sadleir Archive” at Virginia University is maintained by Liz Szabo [website].
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Criticism
Charles Fanning, The Exiles of Erin: Nineteenth-Century Irish-American
Fiction (Notre Dame UP 1987).
Charles Fanning, The Irish Voice in America: Irish-American Fiction from the 1760s to the 1980s (Lexington: Kentucky UP 1990).
Maureen Murphy, ‘The Irish Servant Girl in Literature’, Writing Ulster, No. 5 (1998), pp.133-47.
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Notes
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary,
(Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); listed as Sadleir; married D. J.
Sadleir, a well-known American publisher [JMC knows better, infra];
identifies her as "M- Cootehill" who wrote a poem in The
Nation, 9 March 1884, also ‘numerous Irish tales’; a dg.,
Anna Theresa, borb in Montreal, Jan [19], 1854, author of poems and stories
in US and Canadian journals, is listed separately. See also McKenna, Irish
Literature, 1978, p.249.
Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904); is clear that she m. James Sadleir, yngr. partner of D & J Sadleir, and manager of Montreal branch; and that the family removed to New York in 1860; McCarthy gives extract from MacCarthy More, ‘The Marriage of Florence MacCarthy More’, with a a footnote, ‘The marriage scene related [here] is historical. To prevent the union [which would consolidate the McCarthys] the political advisers of Queen Elizabeth had exercised their utmost ingenuity ... the marriage ... was treated as an act of treason by Queen Elizabeth’; in the text, Ellen’s mother addresses her in Irish ("Aileen!"), ‘the language they generally spoke to one another’.
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919); b. 1820 Cootehill, d. 1903; went to Canada 1844; her ‘grand object’ was ‘the illustration of our holy Faith’. Brown lists The Fate of Father Sheehy (Dublin: Duffy 1845), 178pp, and appendix, 76pp., also ed. (NY Benziger n.d.) [the judicial murder in Clonmel, 1766]; Willy Burke (Dublin: Duffy [1850], 224pp. [held to be her best work by Boston reviewer, see IF2]; New Lights, or Life in Galway (NY: Sadlier [1853]), 443pp. [peasant life in Famine times, their virtues; souperism, landlordism, evictions]; The Blakes and the Flanagans (Dublin: Duffy [1855]; Sadlier 1878; NY: Kenedy 1909) [lower middle class Irish in NY, evil effects of puboic education]; The Confederate Chieftains (Dublin: Gill [1859]), NY, Benziger n.d.), 384pp. [historical romance from Catholic standpoint]; Bessy Conway, or the Irish Girl in America (NY: Kenedy [1861], 316pp. [influence of religion on character ‘the never-failing path to success in this life and happiness in the next’; to servant-girls; Bessy converts landlord’s son to Catholicism on boat to America, marries, and succeeds in NY]; The Red Hand of Ulster, or the Fortunes of Hugh O’Neill (Lon. & Dub. [1862]), no copy in BML; The Hermit of the Rock (Dublin: Gill [1863]), 320pp. [Irish society in the 1860s, a hermit tends the graves on the rock, an Irish Old Mortality, storehouse of legend and tradition; murder, mystery and sensation]; The Daughter of Tyrconnell, a Tale of the Reign of James I (Dublin: Duffy; Kenedy [1863], 160pp. [Mary O’Donnell, dg. of exiled Earl, James wishing her to marry a Protestant; escapes to convent on continent; founded on tradition recorded in MacGeoghegan’s History of Ireland; Mary the good, James the bad]; Simon Kerrigan, or the Confessions of an Apostate (1864; Boston & Montreal, also Duffy), 252pp. [irish farmer’s son emigrates, marries dg. of Protestant deacon; misfortunes; reverts to Catholicism and returns to die at Glendalough, purporting to be an MS found in his house, melodramatic]; Con O’Regan, or Emigrant Life (NY: Kenedy [1864], 1909), 405pp. [anti-emigration novel depicting emigrants’ hardships in New England in the ‘40s; does not conceal the faults of Catholics]; The Old House by the Boyne (Dublin: Gill [1865]; Lon 1888; new ed. NY: Benziger 1904), 319pp. [Drogheda, legendary lore, love interest, below authr’s standard]; The Heiress of Kilorgan [NY: Kenedy [1867], new ed. 1909), vi+420pp. [historical sketches with slight framestory; plan of Ferguson’s Hibernian Nights Entertainments; poor family at Maigue, Co. Limerick, descendants of Geraldines visited by Englishman who has bought the old court; fill-in material includes Mrs Hemans, Longfellow, and Griffin poems and songs; appx. contains Geraldine documents]; MacCarthy Mor (NY: Kenedy [1868]), 277pp. [based on Life and Letters by Daniel M’Carthy, McCarthy represented as Munster Machievel; various battles; Elizabeth, Cecil, Burleigh, Northern Earls, Súgan Earl, Sir Henry Power]; Maureen Dhu (NY Sadlier [1869]), 391pp. [Claddagh; how beautiful fisherman’s dg. is wooed and won by competing merchants of Galway city. IF2 adds, Mrs. James Sadlier, The Red Hand of Ulster, or the Fortunes of Hugh O’Neill (Boston, Donahoe, 1850).
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. 2, notes that the attribution of ‘Miscellanea Mystica’ to J. S. Le Fanu was made by M. Sadleir (p.210).
Robert Hogan, ed., A Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979): her work is interesting as an indication of what the uneducated homesick Irish American was reading.
Belfast Public Library holds Fate of Father Sheehy (1864); Hermit of the Rock (n.d.); Old and New (1866); Old House by the Boyne (1945); Red Hand of Ulster (n.d.); Willy Burke (n.d.).
John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (Longmans 1988; rep. 1989); notes that Confessions of an Agnostic (1864) was frequently reprinted; Maureen Dhu (1869), set at Claddagh [Co. Galway], concerns the evils of emigration.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)