Augusta Theodosia Drane



Augusta Theodosia Drane (29 December 1823 – 29 April 1894) was an English poet and prose writer, and a Roman Catholic nun.

Life
Drane was born at Bromley, near Bow, in 1823. Brought up in the Anglican creed, she fell under the influence of Tractarian teaching at Torquay, and joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1850. She wrote, and published anonymously, an essay questioning the Morality of Tractarianism, which was attributed to John Henry Newman.

In 1852, after a prolonged stay in Rome, she joined the third order of St Dominic, to which she belonged for over forty years. She was prioress (1872-1881) of the Stone convent in Staffordshire, where she died, aged 70.

Publications
Her chief works in prose and verse are: The History of Saint Dominic (1857; enlarged edition, 1891); The Life of St Catherine of Siena (1880; 2nd ed., 1899); Christian Schools and Scholars (1867); The Knights of St John (1858); Songs in the Night and Other Poems (1876); and the Three Chancellors (1859), a sketch of the lives of William of Wykeham, William of Waynflete and Sir Thomas More.

A complete list of her writings is given in Memoir of Mother Francis Raphael, O.SD., Augusta Theodosia Drane, edited by B. Wilberforce, O.P. (London, 1895).