Life
1866-1918 [err. 1925]; b. Dublin; eldest dg. 4 children to George Sigerson
and former Hester Varian; friend of Katharine Tynan and Alice Furlong;
Irish literary revival poet; contrib. Irish Monthly form 1888,
and to the Samhain in 1902; m. Clement Shorter, critic and ed.
of The Sphere [var. Illustrated London News], July 1895;
lived in London thereafter; friend of Alice Furlong, and Katherine Tynan
(who wrote in a biographical sketch that she ‘died of a broken heart’
after 1916 executions. PI JMC IF DIW DIL SUTH FDA OCIL
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Works
Verses London: Elliot Stock 1893), 134pp. [infra]; The Fairy Changeling and Other
Poems (London & NY: J Lane 1897), another ed. (1898); My Lady’s
Slipper and Other Poems (London 1898), Ballads and Poems
(London: J Bowden 1899); The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger
and Death (London: Ward, Lock 1900); As the Sparks Fly Upward
(London: Alex. Moring, De La More Press [1202]); The Woman Who Went
to Hell, and other Ballads and Lyrics (London: De La More Press
[1902]; The Country House Party (London: Hodder & Stoughton
1905); The Story and Song of Black Roderick (London: Alex.
Moring 1906); Through Wintry Terrors (London: Cassell 1907);
Collected Poems, Intro. George Meredith (London: Hodder & Stoughton
1907); The Troubadour and other poems (London: Hodder & Stoughton
1910); New Poems (Dublin & London: Maunsel & Roberts 1912),
3rd ed. (1921); Do-Well and Do-Little (Cassell [1913]); Madge
Linsey and Other Poems (Dublin & London: Maunsel
& Co. 1913), another ed (1916); Love of Ireland, Poems and
Ballads (Dublin & London: Maunsel 1916), another ed. with ‘Poems
of the Irish Rebellion, 1916’, priv. printed (1916), another ed.
(1921); Comfort the Women, a Prayer in time of War (priv. [1915]); An
Old Proverb ... It will be the same in a Thousand Years (London 1916);
The Sad Years and Other Poems, with port. and memoir by Katharine
Tynan (Constable 1918), another ed., ill. (priv. 1918); Sixteen Dead
Men and Other Poems of Easter Week (NY: Mitchell Kennerley 1919) [being
US version of The Tricolour, infra, with short prose parable added
as introduction]; A Legend of Glendalough and Other Sketches
(Dublin & London: Maunsel & Roberts 1919), another ed. (1921);
A Dull Day in London, and Other Sketches (London: Eveleigh
Nash 1920); The Tricolour, Poems of the Revolution, with port.
and photo of monument she sculpted for Easter Rising martyrs (Maunsel
& Roberts 1922), new ed., revised Dan Barry, with poems added from
other vols. and memoir by Katharine Tynan from The Sad Years (Cork:
CFN [1926]); Twenty-one Poems (London: Ernest Benn [1926]); The
Augustan Books of Modern Poetry, Dora Sigerson Shorter (London: Ernest
Benn). [PI; DIL.]
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Criticism
Katherine Tynan, ‘Dora Sigerson, a tribute and some memories, by Katharine Tynan', in Dora Sigerson Shorter, The Sad Years (London: Constable & Co. 1921), pp.vii-xii.
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Notes
W. P. Ryan, The Irish Literary
Revival (1894), Dora Sigerson, her verses is an unequal book, with
fibre, philosophy, fretful introspect, storm-and-doubt unrest, and much
which is plainly poetry. Moods not common with the Irish muse are represented,
also moods which are common, though Miss Sigerson does not make then as
poetical as the others ... her sister [&c, 148].
Katie Donovan, Irish Times (10 Sept. 1995), reviews Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, ed., Voices on the Wind, Women Poets of the Celtic Twilight (New Island Books 1995) noting remarks in introductory essay on Shorter’s knowledge of ‘traditional lore’ as being exceptional among the literary revival female poets of her generation; reviewer cites the poems “The Fairy Changeling” and “The White Witch”.
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary,
(Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); O’Donoghue speaks respectfully
of her as a contemporary writer.
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature, ed. (Washington: University of America 1904); gives 5 poems incl. ‘Cean Duv Deelish’.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, p. 779, George Sigerson biog., ‘dg. became well-known poet’.
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), married to ed. of The Sphere, C. K. Shorter; verse incl. ‘Do Little and Do Well’, a fairy tale; ‘The Country House Party’; d. 1918; lists fiction, The Father Confessor, stories of death and danger (1900); Herself; Hatchways; Jamesie (1918).
John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction, (Harlow: Longmans 1988); 1866-1918, b. Dublin; dg. George Sigerson, Irish surgeon and man of letters; m. C. K. Shorter, English critic and journalist, attracted to her by a photo in the London papers; as Mrs Shorter, she wrote gloomy stories collected as The Father Confessor (1900); her m. Hester wrote the similarly gloomy novel, A Ruined Place, or the Last Macmanus of Dramroosh (1890) [cited parenthetically in short form under Dora Sigerson Shorter, in DIL]. BL 2.
Arthur Quiller Couch, ed., Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918 (new ed. 1929), 864; also anthologised in Brooke/Rolleston (1900); Brown; Cooke; Fitzhenry; Graves; Hoagland; Robinson, Sharp/Mathay [Lyra Celtica]; Tynan, and Yeats. Also in Robert Lynd, ed., ‘Voices of the New Ireland’, Ireland a Nation (1919).
Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, Voices on the Wind, Women Poets of the Celtic Twilight (New Island Books 1995) [with Katharine Tynan; Eva Gore-Booth; Susan Mitchell; Nora Chesson Hopper; Ethna Carbery].
Belfast Public Library holds A Legend of Glendalough (1919); also Glendalough and other Ballads (1921); Madge Lindsay and other poems (1913) [15 poems], 42pp.; New Poems (1912); Poems (n.d.); The Tricolour (1922); The Troubadour (1922); Do., and other poems (1910); Verses (1893). Also, under Sigerson, D., Ballads and Poems (1899); The Collected Poems (1907); Dull Day in London (1920); The Fairy-Changeling and other poems (1898); The Sad Years (1919); Story and Son of Black Roderick (1906); Ancient Irish Poems on Howth (1917); also, The Woman Who Went to Hell (London: De la More [title page sic] Press [n.d.]), 42pp.
Kennys Books (Cat. 2004) lists New poems. [3d edn.] (Dublin: Maunsel 1921), 41pp.; The tricolour; Poems of the Irish Revolution (Dublin: Maunsel & Roberts 1922), 71, [1]pp. front. (port.), pl., Do. [another edn.] (Cork: C.F.N. 1976), 48pp.: ill., ports.; New Poems (Dublin: Maunsel 1912), 41pp., and Do [ 2nd edn.] (Dublin & London: Maunsel & Co., 1913), 41pp. [Inscribed by Thomas Bodkin] ; A legend of Glendalough, and other ballads (Dublin & London: Maunsel & Co. 1919), 40pp. [ The deer-stone, a legend of Glendalough; The woman who went to hell, an Irish legend; Kathleen's charity; The white witch; The fetch; The ballad of the little black hound; The priest's brother]; The sad years (London: Constable & Co. 1921), xv, 86pp., [9] leaves of plates: ill. [‘Dora Sigerson, a tribute and some memories, by Katharine Tynan', pp.vii-xii]; As the sparks fly upward: poems and ballads ( London : A. Moring [190-?]), 34pp.; The story and song of Black Roderick (London: De La More Press 1906), 82pp.; Verses (London: Elliot Stock 1893), 134pp.
Mebdh McGuckian, ‘The Timely Clapper’, short contrib. in ‘The
State of Poetry’, special issue of Krino, ed., Gerald Dawe
and Jonathan Williams (Winter 1993), pp.45-46, quotes extensively a review
of Dora Shorter by George Meredith in 1907 in which he remarks on ‘the
timely clapper’ of common verse in the course of praising her mastery
of false rhyme.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)