Blagden, Isabella

WRITER, POET (SWITZERLAND)
BORN 30 Jun 1817, India (possibly Calcutta) - DIED 20 Jan 1873, Firenze, Toscana
BIRTH NAME Blagden, Isabella Jane
GRAVE LOCATION Firenze, Toscana: Cimitero Degli Inglesi, Piazzale Donatello, 38 (No. 1175)

Isabella Blagden, known as Isa, was born in India and she was probably the illegitimate child of an English father and an Indian mother. In the records of the Florentine Protestant cemetery her nationality is given as Swiss. Little is certain about her life before she came to Florence, where she befriended the Brownings, the Bulwer-Lyttons and the Trollopes. She nursed Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton and in 1857 they may have had an affair.

Her first published poems in 1842 and 1843 were inspired by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Elizabeth Barrett Browning encouraged her to write novels and "Agnes Tremorne" was published in 1861. More novels followed and after her death in Florence in 1873 her poetry was collected and published by Linda Mazini. She was the model for Miriam in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Marble Faun".

Related persons
• was a friend of Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
• was a friend of Garrow, Theodosia

Images

The grave of Isabella Blagden at the Cimitero Degli Inglesi, Firenze.
Picture by Androom (03 Feb 2011)

 

Sources
cemetery
Isa Blagden - Wikipedia


Blaha, Lujza

Published: 25 Feb 2017
Last update: 08 Mar 2022