Barbara Hemphill

Barbara Hemphill (died 1858) was an Irish writer of novels.

Barbara Hemphill
Died	1858 Dublin
Nationality	Irish

Life

Hemphill was the youngest child of the absentee clergyman, Patrick Hare, who was nominally responsible for the settlement of Golden, County Tipperary.^[1] Hemphill initially published her novels without identifying herself after being encouraged by the antiquary Thomas Crofton Croker.

She married John Hemphill in 1807 and they had five children. The youngest of their children was the first Baron Hemphill.^[2] Her 1846 novel Lionel Deerhurst, was edited by the Countess Marguerite Blessington.^[3] Hemphill is credited with three novels which she eventually published under her own name. Although it is suspected that there may be other unattributed works.^[1]

Hemphill died on 5 May 1858 at 6 Lower Fitzwilliam Street in Dublin.^[1]

Works

• Lionel Deerhurst, or, Fashionable Life under the Regency, 1846
• The Priest's Niece, or, The Heirship of Barnulph, 1855
• Freida the Jongleur, 1857

References

1. Brigitte Anton, ‘Hemphill, Barbara (d. 1858)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 24 Jan 2015
2. J. G. S. Macneill, ‘Hemphill, Charles Hare, first Baron Hemphill (1822–1908)’, rev. Terence A. M. Dooley, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 24 Jan 2015
3. Schmid, Susanne (2013). British literary salons of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 228. ISBN 978-1137063748.