Louisa Stuart Costello

Costello, Louisa Stuart, an authoress, was born in Ireland in 1815. She commenced her literary career at an early age by the publication of a volume of poems that attracted the attention of Moore, to whom, in 1835, she dedicated her first important work, Specimens of the Early Poetry of France. She soon became widely known as an authoress of history, travel, romance, and poetry. Ainsworth speaks of her "exquisite sense of the picturesque, and vivid appreciation of local historical association, always simple and unpretending in their enunciation." Perhaps her Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen (1844), and Falls, Lakes, and Mountains of Wales (1845), are the best known of her works. She died on 24th April 1870, aged about 55.

Sources

16. Authors, Dictionary of British and American: S. Austin Allibone. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1859-'71.

34. Biographie Générale. 46 vols. Paris, 1855-'66. An interleaved copy, copiously noted by the late Dr. Thomas Fisher, Assistant Librarian of Trinity College, Dublin.

241. Men of the Time. London, 1856-'75.