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black and white photo of young Lady Gregory standing by desk wearing a dress
Augusta Persse
black and white photo portrait of Lady Gregory as a young woman

Section 1: An Irish Childhood

Born in 1852, the youngest daughter in a family of 16 children, Augusta Persse was, in her own words, ''little­ welcomed," being a girl, and taught ''not to think of herself the equal even of her sisters." Growing up on an unbookish, rural Galway estate and assigned to look after ailing older brothers, she seemed destined to a narrowly bound life. Her marriage in 1880, when aged 27, to her distinguished neighbor Sir William Gregory, then aged 63, brought her status, foreign travel, and a rich social life. Their only child, Robert, was born in 1881. Gregory published her first essay in 1882 and wrote an introspective memoir and numerous articles and poems in the 1880s. Her earliest political activism spurred a brief affair with Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Her writings from later in this period show Gregory just beginning to discover the Irish subjects that would be central to her later literary career.

Items in Section 1: An Irish Childhood

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  • black and white photo portrait of Lady Gregory as a young woman

    Section 1: An Irish Childhood Introduction

  • black and white photo of young Lady Gregory standing by desk wearing a dress

    Augusta Persse

  • Sepia-toned image of man in robes standing next to a white horse

    Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

  • printed poem on page

    A Woman's Sonnets

  • manuscript draft of poem with title written at top of the page

    "Alas! A Woman May Not Love!"

  • color painted portrait of a woman with her hair pulled back and parted

    Augusta Gregory

  • pen and ink sketch of a mill on the left and a castle in the upper right

    Gregory's sketchbook

  • black and white photo portrait of Lady Gregory as a young woman

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