Agnes Castle
BornAgnes Mary Frances Sweetman
c. 1860/c. 1861 [1]
County Dublin
Died1922
OccupationWriter
NationalityBritish
Irish
SpouseEgerton Castle

Agnes Mary Frances Castle (née Sweetman; c. 1860/1861 – 1922) was a Victorian era Irish author who worked with both her sisters and husband.[2][3][4] The stories that she co-wrote were the basis of several plays and films.

Life

Agnes Mary Frances Sweetman was born in County Dublin to Michael James Sweetman (1829-1864), of Lamberton Park, Queen's County, JP, High Sheriff of Queen's County in 1852, and (Mary) Margaret, only child and heir of Michael Powell, of Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin. She had two brothers and was the youngest of four sisters. The Sweetman family were landed gentry of Longtown, County Kildare, and per family tradition were "long settled in Dublin" and "previously resident near Callan and Newtown, County Kilkenny", tracing their line back to the mid-1500s. After her father's death, when she was a small child,[5] the remaining family moved to Brussels in 1873 and she spent her summers in Switzerland.[1] Her sisters, Elinor and Mary Elizabeth, were also writers.[6] With her sisters she began two family magazines: the "Ivy Home Magazine" and "Ivy Home Library".[2][7][1]

Agnes married Egerton Castle in 1883 and co-authored many novels with her husband.[8][9] She also wrote plays for children, as well as stories for magazines such as Temple Bar, Cornhill Magazine, and Macmillan.[1] She has largely been ignored as a writer compared to her husband.[10] Her daughter, Marie Louise Egerton Castle (1885-1969), made a "considerable reputation" as author of a "History of Italian Literature" and reviser of Cary's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy; on 25 October 1922, at the Brompton Oratory, she married Count Antoine de Meeûs, of Brussels.[11][12][13]

Selected works

Filmography

Agnes co-wrote the books these films were based on.

References

  1. ^ a b c d "[Mrs] Agnes Egerton Castle". ricorso.net. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  2. ^ a b "Dictionary of Irish Biography - Cambridge University Press". dib.cambridge.org.
  3. ^ Walter E. Houghton; Jean Harris Slingerland (1989). The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press. pp. 142–. ISBN 978-0-8020-2688-0.
  4. ^ "At the Circulating Library Author Information: Agnes Castle". www.victorianresearch.org.
  5. ^ A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, sixth edition, vol. II, Sir Bernard Burke, Harrison (Pall Mall), 1882, p. 1554
  6. ^ Burke's Irish Family Records, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1976, p. 196
  7. ^ James H. Murphy (1997). Catholic Fiction and Social Reality in Ireland, 1873–1922. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 63–. ISBN 978-0-313-30188-9.
  8. ^ Kemp, Sandra; Mitchell, Charlotte; Trotter, David (1997). Castle, Egerton - Oxford Reference. doi:10.1093/acref/9780198117605.001.0001. ISBN 9780198117605.
  9. ^ Christopher Riches; Michael Cox (29 January 2015). A Dictionary of Writers and their Works. OUP Oxford. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-19-251850-7.
  10. ^ Colman, A. (1994). "Too Many Treasures Remain Veiled". The Irish Review (15): 131–133. doi:10.2307/29735744. JSTOR 29735744.
  11. ^ The Sketch- A Journal of Art and Actuality, 1 November 1922, Ingram Bros., 1922, p. 178.
  12. ^ "Belgian Count's Wedding in London the wedding took place at Brompton Oratory between Count Antoine de Meeus and Miss Marie Louise Egerton Castle 25 October 1922 (Stock Photo)". Alamy.
  13. ^ "All About People: Tittle Tattle". Catholic Press (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1942). 14 March 1929. p. 26.
  14. ^ "Review of The Star Dreamer by Agnes and Egerton Castle". The Athenaeum (3937): 459. 11 April 1903.

External links

Authority control databases
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