women writers Archives - Bonny Miller

The American composer Augusta Browne was not Lady Augusta Browne (1838–1909), ninth child and sixth daughter of Howe Peter [Browne], 2^nd Marquess of Sligo (1788–1845). A photograph of Lady Augusta Browne is frequently displayed and misidentified as an image of the composer. The two unrelated women were born in Ireland almost twenty years apart. Lady Augusta Browne sat for portraits and photographs because she was a member of the minor British peerage in Ireland. Her carte-de-visite from the 1860s belongs to the National Portrait Gallery in London. Lady Augusta Browne never married and led a quiet life in Westport, County Mayo.

Lady Augusta Browne
by Numa Blanc & Cie
albumen carte-de-visite, 1860s
NPG Ax46406

The image of Lady Augusta Browne in the Victorian-era photo does not depict the American composer.

Irish Curiosity (in Honor of St. Patrick’s Day)

By Bonny Miller

On March 17, 2023

In Augusta Browne, Posts

“Irish Curiosity” is the name of a short story published by Augusta Browne in 1848, one hundred seventy-five years ago. The theme of the humorous story is curiosity, which is considered a commendable thirst for knowledge in a man, but in a woman, curiosity is regarded as inappropriate interference in the affairs of others. Further, as Browne expressed in deliberately misspelled language that gave the flavor of an Irish brogue, a woman “of coorse can’t kape a saycret.”

Paper and Pen

By Bonny Miller

On July 3, 2022

In Posts

Introduction

The title page of The Lady’s Almanac for 1854 showcases a romanticized illustration of a lady writing with a quill pen at an ornate desk as time slips away in the winged hourglass.

Augusta Browne’s table and chair would have been far less grand than the engraving depicts, but she was already making contributions as a writer as well as a composer. On page 92, the almanac includes her name—lacking (as often happened) the final e of Browne—among noted American women writers.

A Room of Her Own in Nineteenth-Century America

By Bonny Miller

On December 5, 2020

In Posts

Virginia Woolf wrote “A Room of One’s Own” to deliver in 1929 at Cambridge University for attendees of the two women’s colleges: Girton (est. 1869) and Newnham (est. 1871).

Colored photograph of Girton College, Cambridge — Girton College, Cambridge, England, ca. 1890–1900. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002696455/

Woolf expanded the seven thousand-word essay into a monograph that remains a touchstone of the feminist movement. [see http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200791.txt]. Her argument asserted that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” The formula was much the same for a nineteenth-century female author, i.e., a woman needed to find money (have it, get it, or earn it) and a room of her own to enable her to write.

To paraphrase Virginia Woolf, American composer and author Augusta Browne (ca. 1820–82) did have a room of her own, although—like Emily Dickinson (1830–86)—it was in her parents’ residence.

Music, History, Women, and Heritage

Tag: women writers

Who was Lady Augusta Browne? Not the American Composer.

Irish Curiosity (in Honor of St. Patrick’s Day)

Paper and Pen

Introduction

A Room of Her Own in Nineteenth-Century America