BLESSINGTON

Her father sold her into marriage at the age of 15 to Captain Maurice St Leger Farmer, a sadist from whom she fled after three months. He died in a drunken brawl in 1817, after which she married Charles Gardiner, Viscount Mounjoy and Earl of Blessington. She was a great beauty and formed a brilliant salon and began to write essays and sketches of London Life. In 1822 they went abroad and spent two months in Genoa with Byron and then lived in Italy and France until the earl's death in 1829. After her husband's death the Countess re-established her salon at Gore House, Kensington, writing novels of fashionable life, some with an Irish setting, to maintain an income. She is best known for her 'Conversations with Lord Byron', based on the two months she and her husband spent with the poet on their European tour, and for editing and contributing to Heath's annuals the 'Book of Beauty' and 'The Keepsake'.