Author: Young, Mary Julia
Biography:
YOUNG, Mary Julia (fl 1791-1810)
While little is known of her birth or family origins, Young was a poet, novelist, translator, and memoirist active from 1791 to 1810. She published predominantly in London. In a grant request to the Royal Literary Fund in 1808--they awarded her fifteen pounds--she wrote that she was the only living relative of the poet Edward Young (q.v.), author of Night Thoughts and godfather of her eldest brother Edward; furthermore, that she had outlived six siblings and 25 cousins. Dependent on her writing income, she actively worked with her London publishers, especially Minerva Press and James Fletcher Hughes, to produce books that would sell, notably eight novels between 1798 and 1810. Her first book of poems, Genius and Fancy (1791), was published in London by H. D. Symonds and J. Gray. She also engaged sometimes with contemporary politics in her poetry, especially in Adelaide and Antonine (1793), and she wrote a book on theatre, Memoirs of Mrs. Crouch (1806). One of her poems was put to music and published in a small music collection; another was published with music as a broadside. In addition to her own works, she translated several texts from German and French. Though she was in ill health by 1808, nothing is known about the date nor the circumstances of Young’s death. Her final known publication, the novel The Heir of Drumcondra, appeared in May 1810, and it seems likely that she died not long after; however, it is worth noting that she was included among the “living authors of Great Britain” by Watkins in 1816. She is sometimes confused in catalogues and bibliographies with Mary Young, later Sewell (q.v.) and has been erroneously identified as a daughter of Elizabeth (Taylor) Young and Sir William Young, bt. (1724/5-88). (Orlando 23 Mar. 2022; RLF #216; Watkins) HHM