Irish writer Sydney Owenson tended to be coy about her age, perhaps because she may have been several years older than her husband. Date of birth speculations range from 1776-1785. Owenson began writing poetry and fiction while working as a governess. Her first publication, Poems, Dedicated by Permission to the Countess of Moira (1801) appeared the same year that the Act of Union shattered nationalist hopes for Irish independence. She perhaps imbibed the theme of Irish patriotism from her father, an actor and theater manager who had hoped to establish an Irish national drama. Her first novel, St. Claire, or First Love (1802), was republished the following year under the title St. Clair, or, the Heiress of Desmond. Its strong female protagonist and themes of Irish patriotism and regional detail recur in much of her later work. The success of that novel enabled Owenson to leave her governess position and pursue writing fulltime. As with some of Sir Walter Scott's work, Owenson intended her best known and first major novel, The Wild Irish Girl (1806), to present a sympathetic vision of Ireland’s history and people. The enormously popular O'Donnel. A National Tale (1814) and The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys; a National Tale (1827), which many regard as her best work, also offer powerful political works of Irish fiction. Both novels succeeded despite being savaged in the Tory review periodicals. Other works include A Few Reflections, Occasioned by the Perusal of a Work entitled "Familiar Epistles" (1804), the attribution of which is uncertain; The Novice of Saint Dominick (1806); France (1817); Florence Macarthy, an Irish Tale (1818); Italy (1821); The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa (1824); Absenteeism (1825); The Book of the Boudoir (1829); Dramatic Scenes from Real Life (1833); The Princess, or the Beguine (1835); Woman and Her Master (1840); The Book Without a Name (1841; collaboratively with Sir Charles Morgan); and Letter to Cardinal Wiseman (1851). Her play The First Attempt, or Whim of a Moment opened at the Theatre Royal in Dublin in 1807. Sydney Owenson became Lady Morgan in 1812, when she married physician Thomas Charles Morgan, who was knighted during the couple's courtship. In need of income, both Sir Charles and Lady Morgan produced literary journalism for a variety of periodicals, including the Athenæum, to which Lady Morgan contributed well over one hundred identifiable reviews on an extraordinary variety of topics and often incorporating explicitly political content. In 1837 Lady Morgan was awarded a government pension for her literary work, and soon after, she and her husband moved from Dublin to London, where they established permanent residence. Although deeply grieved by Sir Charles's unexpected death in 1843, she remained active both socially and in the world of letters until shortly before her own death in 1859. A versatile professional writer, Sydney Owenson became in the course of her career not only a productive critic, but a popular novelist, poet, translator, travel and historical writer, and playwright, and key figure in the development of the national tale.