Frances Browne

Frances Browne (16 January 1816 – 21 August 1879) was an Irish poet and novelist, best remembered for her collection of short stories for children, Granny's Wonderful Chair. Early life She was born at Stranorlar, in County Donegal, Ireland, the seventh child in a family of twelve children. She was blind as a consequence of an attack of smallpox when she was 18 months old. In her writings, she recounts how she learned by heart the lessons which her brothers and sisters said aloud every evening, and how she bribed them to read to her by doing their chores. She then worked hard at memorising all that she had heard. She composed her first poem, a version of "The Lord's Prayer", when she was seven years of age. First publications In 1841, Browne's first poems were published in the Irish Penny Journal and in the London Athenaeum. One included in the Irish Penny Journal was the lyric "Songs of Our Land", which can be found in anthologies of Irish patriotic verse. She published a complete volume of poems in 1844 and a second volume in 1847. The provincial newspapers, especially the Belfast-based Northern Whig, reprinted many, and she became widely known as 'The Blind Poetess of Ulster'.