Maria & Harriet Falconar, Poems on Slavery (1788). Gale Ecco, 2018. Courtesy Amazon.com.
Maria Falconar (?1771-1791 fl.) and Harriet Falconar (1774-1791 fl.) were English or Scottish sisters who published joint collections of poems while in their teens in the late 1780s. They then disappeared from the historic record and little is known of their origins or subsequent lives.[1]
Lives and authorship[]
Marie Falconar is stated to have been born in 1771 and Harriet in 1774. They may have been the daughters of Magnus Falconar, who published medical texts in the 1780s.[2] Another possibility is that they were the children of the Scottish poet William Falconer (1732–1769) and his wife Jane (Hicks). However, such a date for their father's death and the wording of the "condescending, laudatory introduction" would question their declared ages of 16 and 14. Furthermore, they were living in London.[3]
Marie appeared in print earliest, with 2 poems published in the European Magazine and London Review in 1786.
The sisters' joint volume of Poems appeared in 1788. The subscribers to the volume was headed by the duke of Northumberland and included 2 Falconer names based in Nairn and Inverness. Elizabeth Carter, Catharine Macaulay and Helen Maria Williams were also subscribers. The poems were on such themes as Remorse and Fancy.[2][3]
Another volume about the ethics of slaver entitled, On Slavery, followed in the same year. This survives in the British Library and is available in E-book format. They were ostensibly 17 and 14 at the time of its publication. The publisher was Egertons, Murray, and Johnson, of Whitehall, London.[2]
In 1791, aged 20 and 17, they authored a volume called Poetic Laurels, addressed to the prince of Wales (later George IV).[3] The content of this volume suggests they were preparing for marriage and were aware it might limit their freedom to write. It is thought possible that they continued to write under their married names and future research may reveal more work by them.[2]
Publications[]
- Poems. London: Printed for Egertons; Murray; & J. Johnson, 1788.
- Poems on Slavery. London: J. Johnson, 1788. http://www.brycchancarey.com/slavery/falconar.htm
- Poetic Laurels. London: 1791.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ Janet M. Todd, ed. (1987), A Dictionary of British and American women writers, 1660–1800. Rowman & Allanheld. Template:ISBN.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lonsdale, Roger (ed) (1990). Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Oxford Anthology. Oxford University Press. pp. 451, 536. ISBN 0192827758. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i27SIQifpkQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (London: Batsford, 1990), pp. 353.
- ↑ Search results = au:Maria Falconar, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Apr. 8, 2020.
External links[]
- Poems
- Maria and Harriet Falconar at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
- Books
- Maria and Harriet Falconar at Amazon.com
- About
- Women of History database, Catherine Russell. Accessed 2016
- A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland: Comprising Literary Memoirs and Anecdotes of Their Lives, and a Chronological Register of Their Publications, with the Number of Editions Printed; Including Notices of Some Foreign Writers Whose Works Have Been Occasionally Published in England Henry Colburn, 1816, p. 112
- Bibliotheca Britannica, or a general index to British and foreign literature Authors [A - H], Volume 1, p. 354, 1824
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