Helen Lady Dufferin emerged from the rich literary heritage of the Anglo-Irish Sheridan family. Associated most commonly today with the tradition of Irish ballads, Dufferin was known and adored within Victorian literary circles, and such ballads as "The Charming Woman," "The Irish Emigrant," and "Terence's Farewell" achieved widespread popularity throughout the nineteenth century. Dufferin's poetry, often set to music by herself or others, reflects important concerns traceable throughout the early and middle periods of Victorian literature: a biting criticism of social class, a spotlight on Irish poverty and emigration, and a despair over loss and separation. While Dufferin infused her early and later writing with an arch wit (particularly in her social satires), the songs and poems written during the middle of her life are marked by sentimentality and often a profound sadness.

Despite her nineteenth-century popularity, Dufferin's work is now largely obscured, in part by the current...