Despite a lack of formal education, being blind, and the limitations of geographical isolation, poverty and gendered expectations of her time, Frances Browne became a literary celebrity in her day. Known as “The Blind Poetess of Ulster”, she worked chiefly in Edinburgh and then London.

Browne wrote three collections of poetry, three three-volume novels, many short stories and essays. She was a prolific journalist and reviewer for many prominent magazines and is chiefly remembered for her best-selling children's storybook Granny's Wonderful Chair (1857). Browne became a literary celebrity in Edinburgh and London literary circles: a poet, novelist, children’s author as well as a popular and prolific non-fiction essayist and writer of serialised fiction. It is estimated by Alexis Easley that by 1866, Browne had published a staggering 178 articles in periodicals, 109 individually published poems and seventy-eight works of periodical fiction, including sixteen serials.

These enormous achievements have not translated into contemporary recognition, and Frances Browne has been effectively erased from the Canon of Irish literature. Apart from cursory references in anthologies, Browne is virtually absent from the public memory with the exception of local interest.

Patrick Bonar’s The Life and Work of Frances Browne (2007) pioneered a revival of local interest in Browne, and Raymond Blair’s The Best of Frances Browne (2012) further emphasised the sheer variety and breadth of Browne’s prolific literary output. in an Irish context Pauline Holland’s chapter on Browne in Treasure Each Voice (2010) provided the first scholarly consideration of Browne’s life and work and evidences a recent renewed academic interest in Browne’s writing.

In New Media and the Rise of the Popular Woman Writer 1832-1860 (2021), Alexis Easley discusses how Browne’s savvy construction of her public image and her ability to present different aspects of her identity to different publics meant that she could at once occupy the role of rural, working-class artist in the Irish Penny Journal and a more cosmopolitan, urbane commentator for the high-brow Athenaeum, as well as simultaneously write with an Irish nationalist tone in her poetry.

Heather Tilley discusses Brown’s novel My Share of the World in dialogue with Wilkie Collins’ Poor Miss Finch in Blindness and Writing : from Wordsworth to Gissing. (2018) Apart from these contributions from Victorian studies and Disability studies, Browne is chiefly referenced in studies on children's literature.

Prior to the recent scholarship of Heather Tilley and Alexis Easley, the most significant critical engagement with Brown, was Thomas Mc Lean’s article “Arms and the Circassian Women”, about Brown’s dramatic epic poem The Star of the Atteghei which remains a foundational text in this growing field (2003).

Andrew Sneddon and John Privelege, at the Coleraine campus, University of Ulster, include Granny’s Wonderful Chair and a poem The May Yarra in their database ‘The Supernatural in Ulster Scots Literature and Folklore Reader’ and point out that Brown “arguably anticipates the supernaturalism of the Irish literary revival.”

Browne’s writings champion the working class, tenant rights, children’s rights, and the urban poor. Her anti-slavery, anti-war and anti-imperialist political positions and non-sectarian attitudes are evident in her writing and demonstrate just how essentially modern her consciousness was.

Her successful writing career at a time when it was considered barely respectable for a woman to write, as well as clearly proto-feminist intentions in some of her work, mean that a reconsideration of Browne’s work is both timely and necessary. Browne’s own complex identity embraces Irishness and an Ulster Scots heritage.

Writing from the seat of empire, Browne’s representation and celebration of cultural complexities in her Legends of Ulster and other writings make her a worthy avatar for cultural pluralism on this island and beyond. Never entirely embraced by one “tribe” or another, rehabilitating her literary legacy and sharing her heritage(s) remain urgent and exciting projects.

Note: October 2023: This article is currently being reviewed and updated. We acknowledge the growing interest and body of work accumulating regarding the life and works of Frances Browne. We seek to acknowledge all who bring new insight, knowledge and elucidation to this body of work. If you are aware of any new articles, research or other works in this area, please do forward it to us at info@francesbrowneliteraryfestival.com