Adelaide O'Keeffe was an author and children's poet, and an amanuensis for her father, noted novelist and poet, John O'Keeffe.
13 Facts About Adelaide O'Keeffe
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Adelaide O'Keeffe was known for her children's poetry and published verse novel for children.
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Adelaide O'Keeffe's father was the Irish Catholic playwright John O'Keeffe and her mother was the Protestant actress Mary Heaphy.
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Enraged, John Adelaide O'Keeffe left Ireland forever, taking his children with him.
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Seven year-old Adelaide O'Keeffe went to a French convent, and there she stayed until the outbreak of the French revolution five years later.
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Twelve-year-old Adelaide O'Keeffe returned to England, and she never again was far from her father.
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Adelaide O'Keeffe served as his amanuensis, and she supported him through her earnings as a governess and an author for almost forty-five years until his death in 1833.
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Adelaide O'Keeffe's first published work is the historical novel Llewellin: A Tale, and throughout her writing career, she would return to the historical fiction form, often seeking out narratives in which her heroes suffered the trauma of a disrupted childhood, often caused by the separation of the hero's parents, as is the case with her final novel The Broken Sword, or, A Soldier's Honour: A Tale of the Allied Armies of 1757.
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Zenobia, as depicted by Adelaide O'Keeffe, is taught multiple religions as she converts from paganism, to Judaism, and finally to Christianity.
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Adelaide O'Keeffe's most famous prose work is a retelling of the first five books of the Bible, Patriarchal Times; or, The Land of Canaan: a Figurate History.
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Adelaide O'Keeffe was one of the three main contributors to the important two-volume collection, Original Poems for Infant Minds along with Ann Taylor and Jane Taylor.
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Adelaide O'Keeffe followed this publication with Original Poems: Calculated to Improve the Mind of Youth and Allure it to Virtue, The Old Grand-Papa, and Other Poems, for the Amusement of Youth, National Characters Exhibited in Forty Geographical Poems, A Trip to the Coast.
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Adelaide O'Keeffe's poetry has been republished in facsimile form in the database, Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period, with an introduction by Donelle Ruwe and under the guidance of series editor Stephen Behrendt.