Author: Browne, Mary Anne (1812-44)
Title: Mont Blanc; and Other Poems.
Date: 1827
Biographical Information
In 1812, Mary Anne Browne was born in Maiden Head, Berkshire to a merchant, George Browne and his wife Felicity Wagner. Browne was the sister of Felicia Browne (better known by her married name, Felicia Hemans), also a famous female poet. Browne is known for her various publications, many of them dating from her early teen years. Her first collection, Mont Blanc and Other Poems, was published when she was fifteen years old. Her publications include Mont Blanc (1827), Ada (1828), Repentance (1829), The Coronal (1834), The Birth Day Gift (1836), and Ignatia (1839). Her works and contributions could also be found in The Lady’s Companion, Dublin University Magazine, The Knicker-Bocker Magazine, as well as in many British periodicals. Browne's works were often dedicated to influential contemporaries like Princess Augusta and Browne’s father. In 1842, Browne married a Scottish gentleman, the nephew of James Hogg, and became Mrs. James Gray. The marriage was short-lived, as Browne died in 1844. Critics and reviewers of Browne’s work note that her poems are “distinguished for grace and tenderness, a ready command of poetical imagery, and a taste delicately skilled in the harmonies of language.”
Sources
Anonymous. The Ladies’ Monthly Museum or Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction; Being an Assemblage of Whatever Can Tend to Please the Fancy, Interest the Mind, or Exalt the Character, of The British Fair. July 1827. 165. Google Books. Web. 14 Apr. 2018.
Anonymous. Literary Gazette. August 1827. English Poetry 1579-1830: Spenser and the Tradition. Web. 14 Apr. 2018.
Mary Russell Mitford, in "Female Poets. Miss Blamire. — Mrs. James Gray" Recollections of a Literary Life; or Books, Places, and People (1852) 222-27.
Radcliffe, David Hill. “Mary Ann Browne.” Mary Ann Browne (1812-1844), spenserians.cath.vt.edu/AuthorRecord.php?&method=GET&recordid=33523.
Rowton, Frederic. Edited by Marilyn L. Williamson. The Female Poets of Great Britain (1853). Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1981.
Sarah Josepha Hale, Woman's Record; or, Sketches of all Distinguished Women (1852; 1855), p. 228.
Urban, Sylvanus. The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle. November 1827. 426. Google Play. Web. 14 Apr. 2018.
Prepared by Nina Hjermstad, University of Nebraska, April 2018.
© Nina Hjermstad, 2018.