Guiney, Louise Imogen

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GUINEY, Louise Imogen

Born 7 January 1861, Boston, Massachusetts; died 2 November 1920, Chipping Camden, England

Also wrote under: Roger Holden, P.O.L.

Daughter of Robert P. and Janet Doyle Guiney

An Irish Roman Catholic and daughter of a Civil War general, Louise Imogen Guiney was something of a literary novelty in late 19th-century Boston, yet she was warmly received into the by then well-established literary circle of Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett. Fields eventually bequeathed a large portion of her estate to Guiney

Guiney's health was never excellent; she had a hearing impairment which grew steadily more severe. She collapsed twice from overwork, once in 1896 and again in 1897. These breakdowns were partially precipitated by the hostile reception she received after her appointment as postmistress of Auburndale, Massachusetts, in 1894. A combination of anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, and antifemale sentiment led local citizens to organize a boycott to force her resignation. Later she was employed in the Catalogue Room of the Boston Public Library. Guiney emigrated to England in 1901 and devoted her later years to scholarly research at Oxford. At the same time, she moved toward a more reclusive lifestyle, as her religious dedication deepened. Her closest friends included Fred Holland Day, with whom she uncovered some important Keats material, Grace Denslow, and Alice Brown, with whom she traveled abroad. Brown dedicated her The Road to Castaly (1896) to Guiney and wrote her biography. They also collaborated on a book on Robert Louis Stevenson (1896).

Guiney published her first lyrics under pseudonyms ("P.O.L." and "Roger Holden") in 1880. Her first collection of poems, Songs at the Start, appeared in 1884; and her first collection of essays, Goose-Quill Papers, in 1885. She considered A Roadside Harp (1893) her best poetical effort, while critics estimate Patrins: A Collection of Essays (1897) to include her most important critical work. Especially significant are the essays "On the Rapid versus the Harmless Scholar" and "Wilfull Sadness in Literature," in which she rejects Arnoldian "disinterestedness" as a proper critical attitude. Her collected lyrics, Happy Endings, were published in 1909 and reissued in 1927.

Guiney was also a dedicated biographer and scholar. Robert Emmet (1904) is about an Irish nationalist, and Blessed Edmund Campion (1908) is about an English Jesuit martyr. She also put forth several important critical editions of relatively minor figures, such as Katherine Philips, "The Matchless Orinda" (1904). One volume of her magnum opus of scholarship, an anthology of Catholic poets from Thomas More to Alexander Pope, entitled Recusant Poets, was published posthumously in 1938.

Guiney favored the cavalier rather than the puritan spirit; her letters suggest a lively, engaged personality. In her works, she was attracted to flamboyant gypsy-like women such as Carmen. In 1896 she wrote a critical preface to Merimée's short story, and "Martha Hilton," a vivacious Cinderella figure drawn from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, history, was Guiney's contribution to Three Heroines of New England Romance (1896), which also included sketches by Harriett Prescott Spofford and Alice Brown.

Some consider that Guiney's unpublished letters contain her finest writing. Two volumes of her letters were published in 1926. Yet even among her published works the consensus is that her religious lyrics are among the finest American contributions to the genre, and that her criticism contains much that is still of value.

Other Works:

Brownies and Bogles (1887). Monsieur Henri: A Footnote to French History (1892). A Little English Gallery (1894). Lover's Saint Ruth's, and Three Other Tales (1895). Robert Louis Stevenson (with A. Brown, 1896). England and Yesterday (1898). The Martyr's Idyl, and Shorter Poems (1900). Hurrell Fronde (1904). Letters (2 vols., 1926).

Many of Louise Imogen Guiney's unpublished letters are housed at the Dinand Library of Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts, and at the Library of Congress.

Bibliography:

Adorita, Sister M., Soul Ordained to Fail: Louise I. Guiney, 1861-1920 (1962). Brown, A., Louise I. Guiney (1921). Fairbanks, H. G., Louise I. Guiney: Laureate of the Lost (1973). Guiney, G. C., Letters of Louise I. Guiney (1926). Tenison, E. M., Louise I. Guiney; Her Life and Works (1923).