WILDE, Lady. Poems by Speranza (Lady Wilde).

Dublin: James Duffy, 1864. First edition. Crown octavo. pp. vii, 233, [1]. Green blind-stamped cloth over bevelled boards, titled in gilt within an oval cluster of Shamrocks on upper cover. Ex libris Dalgan Park with stamps. Wear to head of spine. All edges gilt. A very good copy.
JISC locates the TCD copy only of this edition. O’Donoghue p.481.
Lady Wilde (1826-1896), poet and mother of Oscar, was born in Wexford. Beginning in 1845, Lady Wilde contributed both prose and verse for the Irish nationalist journal The Nation, under the pseudonym “Speranza,” until it was suppressed for sedition in 1848. In that journal’s final issue Lady Wilde penned a militant essay entitled “Jacta alea est,” which was used as evidence in the unsuccessful prosecution of its editor, Charles Gavan Duffy, for sedition. She issued a call to arms on behalf of the Young Irelanders, announcing that “The long pending war with England had already commenced” and proclaimed her authorship from the gallery at his trial. Yeats in his Autobiographies reports that she insisted on Oscar facing trial rather than escaping to the Continent. Her Poems, dedicated to her two sons Willie and Oscar, includes much nationalist verse.

[L4 7C]