Julia Kavanagh was an Irish novelist, born at Thurles in Tipperary, Ireland—then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Her numerous contributions to literature have classified her as one of the non-canonical minor novelist of the Victorian period. Although she is mainly known for the novel and tales she wrote, she also published important non-fiction works that explored the theme of female political, moral and philosophical contributions to society. The appeal of her works is represented by the fact that several of her works have been translated into French, German, Italian and Swedish. Her texts also reached North America, where some of her works appeared in Littel's Living Age, an American magazine. Moreover, she was known to celebrated writers of domestic fiction such as Charles Dickens.
Biography
Born in Thurles, a small town in Munster, Ireland, Julia was the only child of Morgan Kavanagh, author of various philological works and some poems, and Bridget Kavanagh. On 9 January she was baptized in the "Big Chapel," a Catholic church, where the clerk misspelled her name as "Cavanah." Before she was a year old, her family moved to London, and soon after to Paris. Julia spent several years of her early life with her parents in Paris, laying the foundations for a mastery of the French language and gaining insight into French modes of thought, eventually perfected by her later frequent and long residences in France. Her father, Morgan, was a language teacher and he also published books of poetry, novels, and several works on philology. An attempt to capitalize on his daughter's literary fame by adding her as co-author to one of his published novels brought Julia much annoyance. Kavanagh's literary career began in 1844 at the age of 20, when she moved with her mother, after separating from her father in France. Thereafter she supported herself and her almost blind mother, Bridget, with her writing career. At first she started to write small essays and tales for journals and newspapers. Among the different journals she wrote for were Chambers Edinburgh Journal, Household Words, All the Year Round, The Month, People's Journal, Popular Record, Temple Bar, and Argosy. Once she had acquired some reputation she started to write her own books. Her first book was Three Paths, a story for the young; but her first work that attracted notice was Madeleine, a Tale of Auvergne, a story of “heroic charity and living faith founded on fact.” Julia and her mother were again living in Paris from the early 1860s, but moved to Rouen and then to Nice upon the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Julia died after a fall in Nice in 1877, still unmarried and a lifelong devout Catholic. Her last words, in French, were: “Oh Mama! how silly I am to have fallen.” She is buried with her mother in the Cimitiere du Chateau, on the hill above the Old Town to the east of Nice. A notice of her death appeared in The Belfast Newsletter. Bridget continued to live in Nice until her death in 1888. In 1884 she donated a painting of Julia by Henri Chanet to the National Gallery of Ireland.
Works
The scenes of Kavanagh's stories are almost always set in France. Her style is domestic, simple and pleasing, aimed at younger woman readers; her main characters tend to be strong independent and resourceful women. She was popular and had a loyal readership. She was also a prolific contributor to periodical literature, and also wrote many biographical sketches. Modern scholars see a pronounced awareness of gender politics in Kavanagh's writing and view her as a writer whose works consciously exposed the anomalies of social and sexual difference while still adhering to the conventions of the time. Her works include:
