A noted patriotic poet who established a reputation with her fiery, inspiring verse during the Irish potato famine of the mid 1840s by signing her poems with the pseudonym Speranza (a name meaning "Hope"), a diligent researcher of Irish folklore and folkways, a feminist who sought to end social inequalities, and a noted translator, Jane Francesca Elgee (as Lady Wilde) maintained her fame despite being overshadowed by her son Oscar, who on his American lecture tour in 1882 was referred to by the American Irish as "Speranza's son." Also noted for her eccentricity and wit, she was the subject of an article in the Boston Pilot (28 September 1889) by William Butler Yeats, who remarked that "London has few better talkers." When Wilde achieved renown for his brilliant plays, she wrote facetiously: "I must now pose as the Mother of Oscar."

Descended from Anglo-Irish Protestant forebears (the Irish ruling class known...