Lady Georgiana Fullerton
Lady Georgiana Fullerton | |
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Born | Georgiana Charlotte Leveson-Gower 23 September 1812 Staffordshire, England |
Died | 19 January 1885 Bournemouth, England | (aged 72)
Occupations |
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Parents |
Lady Georgiana Fullerton (
Biography
Lady Georgiana Fullerton, born as Lady Georgiana Charlotte Leveson-Gower, was born at home in
For many of her younger years, she resided in Paris, where her father served as the English ambassador.[4] While there she had occasion to take piano lessons from a young Franz Liszt.[5]
Marriage and conversion
On 13 July 1833, Lady Georgiana married embassy attaché Alexander George Fullerton, in Paris. She and her husband left Paris 8 years later, when her father retired from the embassy. They lived in Rome for a few years, where her husband converted to Roman Catholicism. She followed in his footsteps and was received into the Roman Catholic Church on Passion Sunday, 29 March 1846 in London.[4]
In London, she joined Margaret Radclyffe Livingstone Eyre and Cecil Chetwynd Kerr, Marchioness of Lothian who, like her, were recent aristocratic converts to Catholicism. The three of them were a known source of Catholic philanthropy.[6]
In 1855, her only son died at the age of 21,[4] overwhelming her with grief and throwing her and her husband into a permanent state of mourning. After the loss of her only son, she devoted herself to works of philanthropy and charity. In 1856, she adopted the Franciscan tradition by enrolling herself in the Third Order of Saint Francis. At the time of the 1861 England Census, she, her husband, and eleven servants lived at 27 Chapel St in the fashionable St. George Hanover Square, Mayfair, London.[7]
Charitable work
The Fullerton residence in Sussex was the center of her charitable works, which include her efforts to bring the sisters of St. Vincent of Paul to England. In 1872, she assisted in the founding of Frances Margaret Taylor's school and religious community Poor Servants of the Mother of God Incarnate in which she served as the benefactor.
Death
Three years later, she moved for the final time with her husband and eight servants to
A Blue Plaque commemorating her charitable activities can be found on the Sacred Heart Church in Bournemouth.
Publications
Lady Georgiana Fullerton published roughly a dozen novels and biographies on religious, historical, and romantic themes between the years 1844–1883.[9] Most of her publications were novels, but she did publish two volumes of verse. Occasionally, Fullerton translated the works of other authors, such as The Notary's Daughter, a Tale from the French of Madame Léonie d'Aulney (1878).
She began her writing career when she was 32, publishing her first novel, Ellen Middleton: A Tale in three volume in July 1844.[1] Her own brother, Lord Brougham, and Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville, commended her work. The novel contained no illustrations, which was unusual for the period.
She published her second novel, Grantley Manor, in 1847, following her conversion to Catholicism. This novel contained a more advanced style of writing compared to her first. Her most popular novel was Too Strange not to Be True, which was published in 1864. The novel described the life of a poverty stricken French emigrant fighting for survival in the Canadian wilderness.[2]
Her other works include:
- The Old Highlander, the Ruins of Strata Florida, and Other Verses (1849)
- Lady Bird (1852)
- Life of St. Francis of Rome (1855)
- La Comtesse de Bonneval (1857)
- Rose Leblanc (1861)
- Laurentia, A Tale of Japan (1861)
- Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century (1865)
- Life of the Marchessa G. Falletti di Baroto (1866)
- A Stormy Life (1867)
- The Helpers of the Holy Souls (1868)
- Mrs. Gerald's Niece (1869)
- The Gold-digger and Other Verses (1872)
- Life of Louisa de Carvajal (1873)
- Seven Stories (1873)
- Rosemary; a Tale of the Fire of London (1874)
- Sketch of the Life of the Late Father Henry Young, of Dublin (1874)
- A Will and a way (1881)
- Life of Elizabeth Lady Farkland (1883)
- A Stormy Life: Queen Margaret's Journal, a Novel (1885)
Reception
In a margin note in his copy of Ellen Middleton, a
Like most critics, Fraser's Magazine responded approvingly in 1844 to Fullerton's first effort: "To say of Ellen Middleton that it evinces extraordinary talent in the writer, would be to make use of language which is quite inappropriate to the occasion. It is not talent, but power – marvelous power over the deeper feelings of the human heart, which these burning pages set forth."[11]
Responding in October 1847 to Fullerton's second novel Grantley Manor, about a Protestant husband and Catholic wife unable to live together openly due to his father's
References
- ^ a b "Georgiana Fullerton". orlando.cambridge.org. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
- ^ a b c Stephen, Sir Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography, 1921–1922, Volumes 1–22. London, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 765–766.
- ^ England, Births and Christenings, 1538–1975. Salt Lake City, Utah. 2013.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b c Warren, Kate Mary. "Lady Georgiana Charlotte Fullerton." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 4 June 2019 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ Coleridge, Henry James. Life of Lady Georgiana Fullerton, London. Richard Bentley & Son. 1888, p. 42 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/45582. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Class: RG10; Piece: 102; Folio: 8; Page: 7; GSU roll: 838762. Ancestry.com. 1871 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England.
- ^ Class: RG11; Piece: 1195; Folio: 21; Page: 36; GSU roll: 1341293. Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1881 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881.
- ^ "Novel 019: Lady Georgiana Fullerton, Grantley Manor (1847)". New Crosswords / Old Novels. 26 March 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
- ^ Edgar Allan Poe: Marginalia. Retrieved 2 December 2015
- ^ Froude, James Anthony; Tulloch, John (July–December 1844). Fraser's Magazine, vol. XXX. London: G. W. Nickisson. p. 263.
- ^ "Grantley Manor, by Lady Georgiana Fullerton." The New Monthly Belle Assemblée, Vol. 27. October 1847. pp. 198, 193.
Bibliography
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.
- Brockhaus Enzyklopädie 14. edition (German) 1902
- [IT] Lady Georgiana Fullerton, una scrittrice dall'animo buono
- [IT] Georgiana Fullerton, Rose Leblanc, traduzione di Riccardo Mainetti, flower-ed 2019