Julia Kavanagh never obtrudes her personality on the reader, though she lifts him into the exquisitely pure and peaceful atmosphere which one fancies must have been hers. There is something so restful in her books, that it is difficult to believe she was born no longer ago than 1824, and that only twenty years ago she died in middle life; she seems to belong to a farther - away age — probably because her secluded life kept her strongly linked to the past, out of touch with the new generation and the new world of thought around her.

She began to write for magazines while still very young, and was only twenty-three when her first book, The Three Paths, a child's story, was published. After this she wrote about fourteen novels, the best known of which are Madeleine, Nathalie, and Adèle. She wrote many short stories, some of which were re-printed in volumes—notably the collection called Forget-me-nots, published after her death. She also wrote A Summer and Winter in the two Sicilies, Woman in France in the 18th Century, Women of Christianity, and two books which seem to have been highly praised — Englishwomen of Letters and Frenchwomen of Letters. – K. S. Macquoid, pp.252-53.

Biographical Material

Discussion

Works

Bibliography

Fauset, Eileen. The Politics of Writing: Julia Kavanagh, 1824–77. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009.

Macquoid, Katherine Sarah. "Julia Kavanagh and Amelia Blandford Edwards."Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign: A Book of Appreciations by Margaret Oliphant et al. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1897. 251-74. Hathi Trust. Contributed by Pennsylvania State University. Web. 7 April 2021.

Reade, Charles A. / T.P. O'Connor. The Cabinet of Irish Literature: Selections from the Work of the Chief Poets, Orators. And Prose Writers of Ireland, with Biographical Sketches and Literary Notices. Vol. IV. London: Blackie & Son, n.d. Internet Archive. Contributed by the Kelly Library, University of Toronto, Web. 7 April 2021.


Created 7 April 2021