Alice Corkran

Alice Abigail Corkran (1843–1916) was an Irish author of children's fiction and an editor of children's magazines. Born in France to Irish parents, she grew up in the stimulating environment of her mother's literary salon. She was a playmate of Robert Browning's ageing father, and still had his workbooks in her possession when she died. She wrote several well-received novels, particularly Bessie Lang and Down the Snow Stairs. She also edited first the Bairn's Annual and then The Girl's Realm, being the founder of that magazine's Guild of Service and Good Fellowship, which maintained a cot at the Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, among other charitable works.

Early life

Alice Corkran was born in Paris, France, to John Frazer Corkran (1808–1884) and Louisa Walsh (1823–1892). She was the second oldest of five children: three girls, and two boys. Her father began life as a dramatist and had a play, The Painter of Italy, well received at the Theatre Royal, Dublin on 9 March 1840, but by that time he was already in Paris. He was the Paris correspondent of the Morning Herald and the Evening Standard.

John was in Paris for all the excitement of the 1848 revolution and he wrote a book: History of the National Constituent Assembly from May, 1848 (1849) that was said to be still the standard text on the constituent assembly more than 30 years later.

Louisa Corkran married her husband in Dublin in June or July 1839. They were soon in Paris where their five children were born; the first, Henrietta in 1841.