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nInnAmerica, her books were published under the name The Duchess. But thenIrish writer Margaret Wolfe Hungerford wasn’t a duchess. (Anduchess is the wife or widow of a duke, or a woman who has the ranknequal to “duke” in her own right.) I guess that’s why whoevernmakes up wacky holidays calls this one “The Duchess” Who Wasn’tnDay.
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Hungerfordnwrote light romantic fiction. Her books were not “important,” butnthe fun and flirtatious dialogue made them popular throughout thenEnglish speaking world of the late 1800s. Molly Bawn was hernmost famous book.
Hungerfordnwrote light romantic fiction. Her books were not “important,” butnthe fun and flirtatious dialogue made them popular throughout thenEnglish speaking world of the late 1800s. Molly Bawn was hernmost famous book.n
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nBornnon this date in 1855 in Country Cork, Ireland, Hungerford’s mostnfamous bit of writing is this line:
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n “Beautynis in the eye of the beholder.”
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nCelebraten“The Duchess”
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nWhenn an author uses a pen name, it is called a pseudonym. Why do youn think a Victorian woman who was a wife and mother might use an pseudonym?
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nIfn you wrote a book and wanted to use a pseudonym, what would it be?
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Thinkn about Hungerford’s most famous line. Do you think that it is truen that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”? What does it evenn mean?
By the way,
thisn idean had been expressed before Hungerford wrote it, but it never beenn expressed in these words. Reading some earlier versions of then thought, I think Hungerford’s version is shorter and thereforen better. Check out the history of the saying in the Phrase Finder.n
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| If everyone finds the same sorts of scenes beautiful, is the saying correct? |
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nAlsonon this date:
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nAnniversary of the discovery of gallium
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nAnniversary of the installation of the world’s biggest battery
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