Caroline Henrietta Sheridan (''née'' Callander; 1779 – 9 June 1851) was an English novelist of the 19th century.

Biography

Caroline Callander was second daughter of Colonel James Callander (afterwards Sir James Campbell), by his third wife, Lady Elizabeth Helena (d. 1851), youngest daughter of Alexander Macdonnell, fifth earl of Antrim. Miss Callander, one of the beauties of her day, was married in 1805 to Thomas Sheridan, the son of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and his wife

Elizabeth Ann Linley Elizabeth Ann Sheridan ( Linley; September 1754 – 28 June 1792) was an 18th-century English singer who was known to have possessed great beauty. She was the subject of several paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, who was a family friend, Joshu ...

, and by him she was mother of the politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan and ''the three beauties'',’ Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye; the feminist

Caroline Norton Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, Lady Stirling-Maxwell (22 March 1808 – 15 June 1877) was an active English social reformer and author.Perkin, pp. 26–28. She left her husband in 1836, who sued her close friend Lord Melbourne, then the Whig ...

; and Georgiana Seymour, Duchess of Somerset. The only extant account of Caroline Sheridan's character is contained in a letter written from Inveraray Castle by Matthew Lewis to his mother: "Mrs. T. Sheridan is very pretty, very sensible, amiable, and gentle; indeed so gentle that Tom insists upon it, that her extreme quietness and tranquillity is a defect in her character. Above all, he accuses her of such an extreme apprehension of giving trouble (he says) it amounts to absolute affectation". She accompanied her husband in 1813 to the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

, where, while serving the office of colonial treasurer, he died of consumption on 12 September 1817. She received a small pension, and rooms at

Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chie ...

were given to her by the prince regent. There she reared and educated her four sons and three daughters. After her children were grown up, Frances Kemble wrote in ''Records of a Girlhood'': "Mrs. Sheridan, the mother of the Graces, is more beautiful than anybody but her daughters". She published three novels which – according to the

Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

– pleased the public. The first was ''Carwell, or Crime and Sorrow'' (1830), which was designed to expose the inequitable sentences pronounced upon those who had been guilty of forgery. The second was ''Aims and Ends'' (1833); and the third, ''Oonagh Lynch'' (1833). Soon after publication, ''Carwell'' was translated into French and published in Paris. She died on 9 June 1851, at 39 Grosvenor Place, in the house of her daughter, Lady Dufferin.

References

Works cited * *

Notes

External links

''Aims and ends'' and ''Oonagh Lynch''
in 3 volumes, from the Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Sheridan, Caroline Henrietta 1779 births 1851 deaths 19th-century English novelists English women novelists 19th-century English women writers 19th-century British writers