Abstract
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849), was a well-known and popular hostess and a prolific writer. Her oeuvre comprises 11 novels, predominantly with central plots of love and marriage, as well as short stories and poems. Her protagonists travel abroad (especially to Italy) and belong to the fashionable world of great houses, balls, and duels, a world Blessington herself knew but rendered with ambivalence. She edited popular annuals, The Keepsake (1841–50) and Heath’s Book of Beauty (1834–50), expensive gift books aimed at a female readership, and authored the Conversations of Lord Byron (1834; 1969), documenting her acquaintance with the celebrity poet. Several travelogues, most notably The Idler in Italy (1839–40), throw light on her extensive journeys and on her life on the continent. Her literary activities are inseparable from the salons she hosted, where writers, editors, publishers, and reviewers met.
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References
Anon., 1838. “The Works of Lady Blessington, Complete in Two Volumes.” The Gentleman’s Magazine (1 April): 283.
Blessington, Marguerite. 1822. The Magic Lantern; or, Sketches of Scenes in the Metropolis. London: Longman, Hurst, Reese, Orme, and Brown.
—————. 1833. Grace Cassidy; or, The Repealers. London: Bentley.
—————. (1834) 1969. Lady Blessington’s Conversations of Lord Byron. Edited by Ernest J. Lovell, Jr. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
—————. (1837) 2005. The Victims of Society. Edited by Ann R. Hawkins and Jeraldine R. Kraver. London: Pickering & Chatto.
—————. 1839–40. The Idler in Italy. 3 vols. London: Colburn.
—————. 1841. The Idler in France. 2 vols. London: Colburn.
—————. 1842. The Lottery of Life. 3 vols. London: Colburn.
—————. 1845. Strathern; or, Life at Home and Abroad. 4 vols. London: Colburn.
—————. (1847) 2019. Marmaduke Herbert; or, The Fatal Error. Edited by Susanne Schmid. London: Routledge.
—————. 1850. Country Quarters. 3 vols. London: Shoberl.
—————. 1834–50. Ed. Heath’s Book of Beauty. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
—————. 1841–50. Ed. The Keepsake. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
—————. Paper with a lock of hair, inscribed by Blessington: “The Hair of poor dear L.E.L.” British Library, Add MS 43688 F, ff 69.
Godwin, William, 1794. Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams. 3 vols. London: Crosby.
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Further Reading
Anon. 1849. “Gore House: By an American Traveller.” New Monthly Magazine and Humorist 86: 135-51.
Matoff, Susan. 2016. Marguerite, Countess of Blessington: The Turbulent Life of a Salonnière and Author. Lanham: University of Delaware Press.
Molloy, J. Fitzgerald. 1896. The Most Gorgeous Lady Blessington. 2 vols. London: Downey & Co.
Sadleir, Michael. (1933) 1983. Blessington-d’Orsay: A Masquerade. London: Folio Society.
Schmid, Susanne. 2013. British Literary Salons of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Schmid, S. (2023). Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of (née Margaret Power). In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Romantic-Era Women's Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_7-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_7-3
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Blessington, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of (née Margaret Power)- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11945-4_7-1