Costello Biography

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

[Costello, Louisa Stuart]

Songs of a Stranger. London: Published for the Author. London: by Talor and Hessey, 1825. Vol. 1, ix + 158pp.

Biographical Information

Louisa Stuart Costello, daughter of an army officer, James Francis Costello and Elizabeth Tothridge, was born in 1799. Several sources that I consulted offered conflicting places of birth for Costello. She was thought to have been born in either Ireland (Hide and Blain) or Sussex, England (Boase and Mitchell). Likewise her father, James Francis Costello's rank within the army was also questionable among the same sources. He was thought to have been either a Captain (Boase and Mitchell) or a Colonel (Hide and Blain). Costello was the only daughter among three children. Her younger brother, Dudley Costello, served in the army and was a journalist and illustrator. Costello also had another unknown brother who appears to have died at sea in 1813. After the death of her father in 1814/15, Costello, along with her mother and younger brother, moved to Paris. There, at the age of sixteen, Costello supported her family by painting miniatures. Costello also financially supported her younger brother Dudley while he received his education at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, served in the army, and eventually until his death, in 1865.

In 1820, Costello moved to London to pursue a career in painting miniatures. Her miniatures were displayed at the Royal Academy between 1822 and 1839; however, her work was not well-known. Parallel to her career in painting, Costello also pursued a writing career. Costello was well-known as a travel writer, publishing works such as Falls, Lakes and Mountains of North Wales in 1845 and Tour To and From Venice, by the Vaudois and the Tyrol in 1846. She published her first volume of poetry, The Maid of Cypress Isle and other poems, in 1815, and a second volume of poetry in 1819. However, Costello's first publication to gain recognition was Songs of a Stranger, published in 1825 and dedicated to the Reverend William Lisle Bowles. Costello's poetry in Songs of a Stranger was described as having "graceful verses, and so tunable that some of them set to music became popular" (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).
Costello continued to gain recognition and attention for her work. Helped by her charming personality, engaging conversation and pretty face, Costello soon gained the respect and friendship of Sir Francis and Lady Burdett and their daughter (The Athenaeum). In 1835, she published Specimens of the Early Poetry of France, dedicating her work to another admirer, Thomas Moore. With the publication of Specimens of the Early Poetry of France, Costello became generally well-known, and she acquired the friendship also of Sir Walter Scott, who helped her to devote herself entirely to literature.

Costello also published several novels, some of which include The Queen's Poisoner, or, France in the Sixteenth Century (1841), and The Contrasts of a Life (1848). It was said that "both novels suggest that she had no great talent for fiction, and both her historical biographies and her travel books are far more readable" (Mitchell).

Along with writing novels, Costello published biographies. In 1844, Costello published, The four-volume Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen, which included biographies of Bess of Hardwick, Arabella Stuart, Anne Clifford, Elizabeth of Bohemia, Lady Rachel Russell, Mary Beale, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Susannah Centlivre. Costello also published the first full-length biography in English of the Renaissance French queen, entitled Memoirs of Anne, Duchess of Brittany, published in 1855.

Near the end of her life, Costello became friendly with a prominent family, the Burdetts, who awarded her a liberal pension (Mitchell). "In 1852 she was given a Civil List pension of £75 p.a. LSC" (Blain). After the death of her mother in 1846 and the death of her brother Dudley in 1865, Costello, who had never married, retired in Boulogne. Here, Costello died from cancer of the mouth on April 24, 1870. She was buried in Saint Martin's cemetery in Boulogne. Costello was described as "one of the most voluminous and popular writers of her day. Her best books, describing those parts of France least known in England, combine graphic description with anecdotal and archæology which varies the narrative of travel and adventure" (Boase).

Works Cited
"Louisa Stuart Costello." The Athenæum Index 7 May 1870, p. 612;
"The Library of Congress Online Catalog." The Library of Congress. 29 June 2004. <http://www.catalog.loc.gov/html>
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy Eds. Costello, Louisa Stuart, 1799-1870. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English : Women Writers form the Middle Ages to the Present New Haven: Yale UP, 1990.
Boase, G. C. "Costello, Louisa Stuart (1799-1870)." The Dictionary of National Biography. Eds. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee. vol. IV (1917) 1202.
Hide, Kevin. "Louisa Stuart Costello." Old Poetry. Ed. Desiree Darkk. Spring 2002.<http://www.oldpoetry.com/authors/Louisa%20Stuart%20Costello.html.>
Mitchell, Rosemary. "Costello, Louisa Stuart (1799-1870)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6380>