Elinor Sweetman Explained

Elinor Sweetman
Birth Name:	Elinor Mary Sweetman
Birth Date:	c. 1860/1861
Birth Place:	County Laois
Death Date:	1922
Death Place:	Clontarf, County Dublin
Occupation:	Writer
Nationality:	British Irish

Elinor Sweetman (c. 1860/1861 – 1922) was a Victorian era Irish poet and author who worked with both her sisters.^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}

Early life

Elinor Mary Sweetman was born in County Dublin to Michael James Sweetman (1829-1864), of Lamberton Park, Queen's County, JP, High Sheriff of Queen's County in 1852, and (Mary) Margaret, only child and heir of Michael Powell, of Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin. She had two brothers and three sisters. The Sweetman family were landed gentry of Longtown, County Kildare, and per family tradition were "long settled in Dublin" and "previously resident near Callan and Newtown, County Kilkenny", tracing their line back to the mid-1500s.

After her father's death, when she was a small child,^[6] the remaining family moved to Brussels in 1873 and she spent her summers in Switzerland.^[7] Her sisters, Agnes and Mary Elizabeth were also writers.^[8] With her sisters she began two family magazines: the ‘Ivy Home Magazine’ and ‘Ivy Home Library’.Her poetry was used in several of her sisters' novels.^[9] She remained unmarried and was one of her mother's heirs after her death in 1912.^{[10] [5] [11]}

Sweetman was a poet and writer published in magazines and periodicals as well as in collections of poetry and her own folios. Her work was often illustrated by well known artists of the day including Arthur Wallis Mills and Elizabeth Gulland.^{[12] [13] [14]} Though she has largely been ignored as a writer she was critically celebrated at the time and is a clear example of the poetry of women at the time discussing religion and romance.^{[15] [16] [17] [18] [19]}

Selected works

• Carmina Mariana; an English anthology in verse in honour of or in relation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Edited by Shipley, Orby, 1832-1916, ed; Publication date 1894; Publisher London, New York : Burns and Oates
• Footsteps of the Gods and other poema (1893)
• Pastorals and other poems (1899)
• The wild orchard (1911)
• Psalms, verse (1911)
• The Oxford Book Of Victorian Verse (1912)
• Book: Alfred Perceval Graves. The Book of Irish Poetry, Edited with an Introd. 1972. Books for Libraries Press. 978-0-8369-6345-8.

Further reading

• Book: P.Villar. The Poetry of Eavan Boland: A Postcolonial Reading. 2008. Academica Press, LLC. 978-1-933146-23-2. 96–.
• Web site: Paganism in England 1885-1914 .
• Book: Christopher Riches. Michael Cox. A Dictionary of Writers and their Works. 29 January 2015. OUP Oxford. 978-0-19-251850-7. 1–.
• Book: Jane Dowson. Alice Entwistle. A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry. registration. 19 May 2005. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-81946-6. 12–.
• Book: Anna Pilz. Whitney Standlee. Irish Women's Writing, 1878-1922. March 2018. Oxford University Press. 978-1-5261-2711-2. 66–.
• Book: Rebecca Anne Barr. Sarah-Anne Buckley. Laura Kelly. Engendering Ireland: New Reflections on Modern History and Literature. 2015. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 978-1-4438-8307-8. 174–.
• Book: Stephanie Barczewski. Myth and National Identity in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood. 2 March 2000. OUP Oxford. 978-0-19-154273-2. 221–.
• Book: Lucy Collins. Poetry by Women in Ireland: A Critical Anthology 1870-1970. 8 June 2012. Oxford University Press. 978-1-84631-723-1. 265–.
• Miss Elinor Sweetman's Poems. Meynell, Alice. Merry England; London. 22. 127 . Feb 1894. 292–294.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Dictionary of Irish Biography - Cambridge University Press . dib.cambridge.org.
2. Book: Walter E. Houghton. Jean Harris Slingerland. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900. 1989. University of Toronto Press. 978-0-8020-2688-0. 142–.
3. Web site: At the Circulating Library Author Information: Elinor Castle . www.victorianresearch.org.
4. Book: James H. Murphy. Irish Novelists and the Victorian Age. 13 January 2011. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-959699-7. 138–.
5. Book: Lucy Collins. Poetry by Women in Ireland: A Critical Anthology 1870-1970. 8 June 2012. Oxford University Press. 978-1-84631-723-1. 265–.
6. A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, sixth edition, vol. II, Sir Bernard Burke, Harrison (Pall Mall), 1882, p. 1554
7. Web site: M. E. Francis . www.ricorso.net.
8. Burke's Irish Family Records, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1976, p. 196
9. Book: James H. Murphy. Catholic Fiction and Social Reality in Ireland, 1873-1922. 1997. Greenwood Publishing Group. 978-0-313-30188-9. 63–.
10. Web site: Will probate.
11. Web site: Elinor Mary Sweetman . www.ricorso.net.
12. Sweetman . Elinor M . Grobinoff's Toys . . 40 . 171 . July 1907 . 41–47 . .
13. Web site: Contents Lists . www.philsp.com . 2 August 2018 . 2 August 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180802193257/http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/t/t947.htm#A16374 . dead .
14. Web site: Contents Lists . www.philsp.com.
15. Web site: POETRY.—Treasures of the Deep. By Robinson Elliot. (Elliot Stock.)—Mr. Elliot's » 1 Dec 1894 » The Spectator Archive . The Spectator Archive.
16. Colman, A.. 1994. Too Many Treasures Remain Veiled. The Irish Review. 15. 131–133. 29735744. 10.2307/29735744.
17. Book: The Irish Monthly. 1891.
18. Web site: SUPPLEMENT TO THE SPECTATOR, July 16, 1892, » 2 Jan 1892 » The Spectator Archive ]. The Spectator Archive.
19. Book: The Irish Monthly. 1892. McGlashan & Gill.