Mary Anne Sadlier

Mary Anne Sadlier (31 December 1820 – 5 April 1903) was an Irish-Canadian author. Sadlier published roughly twenty-three novels and numerous stories. She wrote for Irish immigrants in both the United States and Canada, encouraging them to attend mass and retain the Catholic faith. In so doing, Sadlier also addressed the related themes of anti-Catholicism, the Irish Famine, emigration, and domestic work.

Her writings and translations are commonly published under the name "Mrs. J. Sadlier." Earlier in her career, between 1840 and 1845, she also published some works under the pseudonym "Anne Flinders."

Life Mary Anne Sadlier (née Madden) was born on December 31, 1820, in Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland. Her father, Francis Madden, was a successful merchant who raised Mary Anne following the death of her mother when Mary Anne was quite young.

Sadlier showed early literary promise, publishing her first poems in the London periodical "La Belle Assemblée" at the age of 18. Her father encouraged her literary aspirations, and these early works were printed while she was still a young woman in Ireland.

Sadlier apparently donated her articles out of sympathy with the nationalistic causes of Irish journals. During her stay in Montreal Sadlier also wrote two novels set in Ireland: Alice Riordan; the Blind Man's Daughter (1851) and New Lights; or, Life in Galway (1853). In New Lights, Sadlier deals with the Irish Famine for the first time. The book proved one of her most popular, going through at least eight editions in fifty years. In this novel, Sadlier focuses a polemical attack on the Protestant practice of converting Irish peasants by promising them soup, but condemns peasant retaliation and violence. Sadlier published much of her work in the family's Catholic magazine, The Tablet.

McGee and Sadlier shared an interest in a "national poetry" that would not only capture the spirit of a people, but inspire them to political and national independence. While McGee, as a man, could take part in political rallies and organize Irish-American support for Home Rule, Sadlier, as a woman, directed her support for Irish independence into literature. McGee's biographer notes that Sadlier's success inspired him to write emigrant novels, and that he was planning a novel on this subject at the time of his death (Phelan, 285). McGee's controversial politics cost him his life in 1868, when an Irish-American radical assassinated him, and his death was "a crushing blow to Mrs. Sadlier and her husband, who were his enthusiastic friends" (Anna Sadlier, 332). Sadlier edited a collection of McGee's poetry in 1869 in tribute to his memory. Sadlier remained in New York for nine years before returning to Canada, where she died in 1903. One of Mary Anne's daughters, Anna Theresa Sadlier, also became a writer.

Selected works

Confessions of an apostate (1842), London: R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside (1868); New York, Boston: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. The "field of honour"; or, "scenes in the nineteenth century"(1844), Cockspur Street, London: W.H. Dalton. Naboth the Jezreelite; and other poems (1844), Bath The Red Hand of Ulster; or, The Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill (1850) Willy Burke; or, The Irish Orphan in America (1850) The Blakes and Flanagans, A Tale Illustrative of Irish Life in the United States (1855) The Confederate Chieftains: a Tale of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 (1860) The Babbler; a drama for boys, in one act (1861) Bessy Conway; or, The Irish Girl in America (1861) Elinor Preston: or, Scenes at Home and Abroad (1861) The Pope's Niece, and Other Tales (1862) Old and New; or, Taste versus Fashion (1862) Confessions of an Apostate; or, Leaves from a Troubled Life (1864)) Con O'Regan; or, Emigrant Life in the New World (1864) Aunt Honor's Keepsake (1866) The Secret (a drama) (1873) The Daughter of Tyrconnell: A Tale of the Reign of James the First (1863) The Young Lady's Reader (1882) The Old House By The Boyne (1865) Alissa Flecq (1894) New Stories (1900)