ntensely and Owenson's heroine is said to have influenced some of his own orientalist productions. Miss Owenson entered the household of John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn, and in 1812 – persuaded by Lady Abercorn, the former Lady Anne Jane Gore – she married the philosopher and surgeon to the household, Sir Thomas Charles Morgan, but books still continued to flow from her facile pen.

In 1814 she produced her best novel, O'Donnell. She was at her best in her descriptions of the poorer classes, of whom she had a thorough knowledge. Her elaborate study (1817) of France under the Bourbon Restoration was attacked with outrageous fury by John Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review, the author being accused of Jacobinism, falsehood, licentiousness and impiety. She took her revenge indirectly in the novel of Florence Macarthy (1818), in which a Quarterly reviewer, Con Crawley, is insulted with supreme feminine ingenuity.

Italy, a companion work to her France, was published in 1821 with appendices by her husband; Lord Byron bears testimony to the justness of its pictures of life. The results of Italian historical studies were given in her Life and Times of Salvator Rosa (1823). Then she turned again to Irish manners and politics with a matter-of-fact book on Absenteeism (1825), and a romantic novel with political overtones, The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys (1827). From William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, Lady Morgan obtained a pension of £300. During the later years of her long life she published The Book of the Boudoir (1829), Dramatic Scenes from Real Life (1833), The Princess (1835), Woman and her Master (1840), The Book without a Name (1841), and Passages from my Autobiography (1859).

Sir Thomas died in 1843, and Lady Morgan died on 14 April 1859 (aged about 82) and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

Legacy[edit]
Before her death in 1859, Lady Morgan enlisted the help of her friend Geraldine Jewsbury to help write her memoirs. The two had originally met in 1853 when Jewsbury was newly arrived to London. Lady Morgan became friends with Geraldine and helped her live the single life while in London. When Jewsbury wrote her friend's memoirs, she spoke of Lady Morgan's kindness and friendship in which she showed to Geraldine.[3]


Bust of Lady Morgan by David d'Angers
Lady Morgan's autobiography and many interesting letters were edited with a memoir by William Hepworth Dixon in 1862.

There is a bust of Lady Morgan in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The plaque identifying the