Mrs. Hemans

Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835), born Felicia Browne in Liverpool, was one of the most popular English poets of the early nineteenth century. Raised in North Wales, she published her first volume at fourteen and her second at fifteen, and after her husband left her in 1818 she supported five sons by her pen, producing The Siege of Valencia, The Forest Sanctuary, Records of Woman and Songs of the Affections. Wordsworth, Scott and Byron knew her work, and Casabianca, The Homes of England and The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers were recited in schoolrooms on both sides of the Atlantic for a century. She died in Dublin at forty-one.