At the Circulating Library

Author: Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald

Author: Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald (1846–1939)

Alternate Name(s): Naseby (pseudonym); Frances A. Gerard (pseudonym)

Biography: (Fanny) Geraldine Penrose Fitzgerald was born in 1846 in Corkbeg, Co. Cork, the daughter of Robert Uniacke Penrose Fitzgerald (1800–1857) and Frances Matilda Austen. As a young women, she read Newman's Apologia and began entertaining thoughts of converting to Rome which put her at odds with her staunchly protestant family. After the death of her father, she moved with her mother and sister to London where she began a friendship and long correspondence with John Henry Newman. A few years later Fitzgerald converted, though she never became a nun as she had planned. In the 1870s, she began a writing career by contributed to various magazines and eventually published several novels under the pseudonyms "Naseby" and "Frances A. Gerard" (the latter a play on her own name). She never married and died in 1939 in London.

References: British Census (1881); Joyce Sugg, Ever Yours Affly: John Henry Newman and his Female Circle (1996); Times (4 August 1939); Wellesley

Fiction Titles:

1. Ereighda Castle: A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Chapman and Hall, 1870.
2. Only Three Weeks: A Novel.  2 vol.  London: Chapman and Hall, 1872.
3. Was She Tamed?: A Novel.  3 vol.  London: Chapman and Hall, 1875.
4. Oaks and Birches: A Novel.  3 vol.  Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1885.
5. Sir Alan's Wife.  1 vol.  London: William Stevens, 1888.
6. Audrey Ferris: A Novel.  1 vol.  London: Ward and Downey, 1889.
7. The Silver Whistle: A Novel.  2 vol.  London: W. H. Allen, 1890.