Author: Quillinan, Edward
Biography:
QUILLINAN, Edward (1791-1851: ODNB)
His parents Mary (Ryan) and John Quillinan were Irish Catholics who had established a prosperous wine business in Oporto (now Porto) in Portugal, where Edward was born. At seven he was sent to England to attend Catholic schools; he never saw his mother again, for she died a few years later and his father remarried. When he was fourteen his schooling ended. He was brought into the family business but did not like it. On the outbreak of the Peninsular War, when France invaded Portugal, the family fled to England. Quillinan's stepmother, pregnant at the time, died during the journey. Quillinan's father purchased a commission for him in the British army which led to a successful military career in various regiments of dragoon guards. "By profession a soldier, the passion of his life was literature," as his biographer observed (Johnston xii). His first satiric verses in 1810 gave offence and led indirectly to a duel. He then published a succession of handsome limited editions with the Lee Priory Press of Samuel Egerton Brydges (q.v.) and married Brydges's daughter Jemima in 1817. The couple had two children. After Quillinan retired from the army in 1821, they lived in the Lake District and became close friends of the Wordsworths. Dorothy Wordsworth nursed Jemima in 1822 in her final days, after she was burnt from her dress catching fire. Quillinan thereafter lived in London or at Lee Priory. He courted Wordsworth's daughter Dora but Wordsworth opposed the match and they were not able to marry until 1841. Dora was already in poor health and although they travelled in quest of improvement, she died at Rydal in 1847. Quillinan throughout had continued to write, passing eventually from original poetry to prose fiction (The Conspirators, 1841) and to an unfinished verse translation of Camoens' Lusiad. He died at Rydal after "taking cold" while fishing, and is buried with both wives in Grasmere churchyard. (ODNB 15 Jul. 2020; William Johnston, "Memoir" in Quillinan, Poems [1853]) HJ
Other Names:
- E. Quillinan
- Rusticus