Author: O'Brien, Mary
Biography:
O’BRIEN, Mary (fl 1782-90)
Very little is known for certain about this author, including whether she was Irish or English--although she was most likely the former. Her first known published work, The Glorious Revolutions of 1782, refers to several important pieces of legislation that granted some rights to Catholics and repealed the 1720 Declaratory Act. She may have lived in London in the mid to late 1780s given the publication there of her Pious Incendiaries, a book attacking Lord Gordon and anti-Catholic sentiment. She also claimed in the preface to The Political Monitor that the poems were “published in England during the agitation of the regency”—that is, Nov. 1788-Mar. 1789--although no details of such publication have been located. An undated manuscript by her is in the BL—"The Temple of Virtue. An Opera in Three Acts,” which she had sent to R. B. Sheridan (q.v.) for performance at Drury Lane. The title page of her Political Monitor identifis her as the wife of "Patrick O'Brien, Esq." and the author of "Charles Henley," a novel that is sometimes attributed to Sarah Green. No copy of Charles Henley; or, The Fugitive Restored [London, 1790] has been located but the book was reviewed and advertised as available at a circulating library in Dublin. One other work, The Fallen Patriot, a Comedy, was issued by W. Gilbert in Dublin in 1790. Thereafter Mary O’Brien falls silent. No records that can be linked to her have been located on the various genealogical sites. (IWP 5 Oct. 2021; BL Add MS 25927; Dublin Evening Post 1 June 1790; EN1; ancestry.co.uk 5 Oct. 2021) SR