Margaret Holford

This article is about the writer (1778–1852). For her mother of the same name (1757–1834), see Margaret Holford (the elder).

Margaret Holford (1778–1852) was an English poet and translator. Her most successful work was a historical verse romance, Wallace, or, The Fight of Falkirk (1809).

Life

Her mother, also Margaret Holford (1757–1834) was likewise an author, and their works have sometimes been confused in bibliographies.[1]

Holford was baptised on 1 June 1778 in Chester, and married Septimus Hodson (1768–1833), chaplain in ordinary to the Prince of Wales, in 1826, who was then the Anglican rector of Thrapston, Northamptonshire. She later wrote under her married name, Margaret Hodson. Robert Southey stayed for a week with the Hodsons in 1829. Among her close associates was Joanna Baillie.[2] Her husband died in 1833 and she died in Dawlish, Devon, on 11 September 1852.[1]

Work

The first published work of Margaret Holford the younger is thought to have been the two-volume Calaf, a Persian Tale, written when she was 17 and published anonymously about 1798.[3] Her most successful was a historical verse romance entitled Wallace, or, The Fight of Falkirk. Also published anonymously, this appeared in 1809, a year after Walter Scott's Marmion.[1] Later romantic poems of hers included Margaret of Anjou and The Past. She also wrote a three-volume novel, Warbeck of Wolfstein, other poems, and a play that was never published or performed.[3]

The publication of her novel First Impressions in 1800 compelled Jane Austen to change the title of her own novel to Pride and Prejudice.[4]

External links

References

  1. 1 2 3 Sutherland, Kathryn (2004). "Holford , Margaret (bap. 1778, d. 1852)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 20 June 2013. (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Radcliffe, David. "Margaret Holford (1778-1852)". English Poetry 1579-1830: Spenser and the Tradition. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  3. 1 2 Orlando Project, Margaret Holford the Younger. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  4. ↑ Jane Austen Society of North America Retrieved 6 October 2016.
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