Lady Jane Francesca Wilde

Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde, née Elgee, was born in Dublin in 1821 and remains best known for her fierce Irish nationalist poems published in The Nation under the pseudonym 'Speranza'. She married Sir William Wilde, a surgeon, in 1851 and they had three children: Willam, Oscar and Isola. Progressive not only in her political views, but also in her opinion on women's rights, Lady Wilde wielded considerable influence in both Dublin and London through her famous salons. Following her husband's death in 1876, she moved to London and wrote mainly to support herself. Her literary output includes travel writing, for example Driftwood from Scandinavia, literary criticism, essays, leaders, and two collections of Irish folklore based on her husband's research. Despite her substantial oeuvre spanning the mid to late Victorian periods her work has largely been shadowed by that of her youngest son, Oscar Wilde.