Louise Imogen Guiney

Louise Imogen Guiney (January 7, 1861 – November 2, 1920) was an American poet, essayist and editor, born in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Biography

The daughter of Gen. Patrick R. Guiney, an Irish-born American Civil War officer and lawyer, from County Tipperary and Jeannette Margaret Doyle, she was raised Roman Catholic and educated at the Notre Dame convent school in Boston and at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Providence, Rhode Island, from which she graduated in 1879.

Over the next 20 years, she worked at various jobs, including serving as a postmistress and working in the field of cataloging at the Boston Public Library. She was a member of several literary and social clubs, and according to her friend Ralph Adams Cram was "the most vital and creative personal influence" on their circle of writers and artists in Boston (see Visionists).

In 1901, Guiney moved to Oxford, England, to focus on her poetry and essay writing. She donated a crucifix sculpture to the church of St Mary and St Nicholas, Littlemore, to mark the centenary of Cardinal Newman's birth in 1901.

She soon began to suffer from illness and was no longer able to write poetry. She was a contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, Scribner's Magazine, McClure's, Blackwood's Magazine, Dublin Review, The Catholic World, and the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Guiney is believed to have had a long-term relationship with Alice Brown who wrote of their travels together in her book By Oak and Thorn (1897) and later wrote the biography Louise Imogen Guiney — a Study (1921).