Author: Kenney, Martha
Biography:
KENNEY, Martha (fl 1820-25)
The attribution of Charity: a Poem, published for the (Evangelical) Church Missionary Society in 1823, depends on other works published anonymously. The title-page identifies the author as author also of Letters on Prejudice (2 vols. 1822, signed M. K.) and of "Sermons on Christian Responsibility" (i.e. Practical Sermons on Various Subjects . . . [to] enforce the Principle of Christian Responsibility, published in London in 1819 by Cadell and Davies). A later work, A Defence of Religious Liberty (1825, Cadell) is also attributed to "the author of Letters on Prejudice." The first problem is that in fact the authorship of Letters on Prejudice remains undetermined: in dictionaries of anonyms it has been variously attributed to an Irish clergyman, Arthur Henry Kenney, to Martha Kenney, and to Mary Kenney, with Martha Kenney the dominant choice. The second problem is that none of the other titles in the chain mentions "Christian Responsibility," which--as a set of sermons--could have been written only by a clergyman. It is perhaps for this reason that Charity is sometimes given to William Lisle Bowles, who did compose poems with similar titles but did not write either Letters on Prejudice or "Christian Responsibility." A third issue is that it is unclear where the name "Martha Kenney" came from, and although there are a few married and unmarried women of that name listed in the genealogical sites, none of them is a compelling match. The attribution remains tenuous.