Mary Tighe

Psyche; Or, the Legend of Love (Dodo Press) Mary Tighe

Mary Tighe, nee Blackford or Blanchford (1772-1810) was an Anglo-Irish poet. She was born in Dublin to Theodosia Tighe, a Methodist leader, and William Blachford (d. 1773?), a Church of Ireland clergyman and librarian. She had a strict religious upbringing, and when she was twenty-one she married Henry Tighe (1768-1836), her first cousin and a member of the Parliament of Ireland for Inistioge, County Kilkenny. The marriage is said to have been unhappy, though little is known. The couple moved to London and Tighe became acquainted with Thomas Moore and others interested in literature. Although she had written since girlhood, she published nothing until Psyche; or, The Legend of Love (1805), a six-canto allegorical poem in Spenserian stanzas. Having suffered from tuberculosis for some years, Tighe spent the last months of her life an invalid and died in 1810. Her diary was destroyed, though a cousin copied out excerpts. Mary: A Series of Reflections During 20 Years was published posthumously. It was edited and privately printed by her brother-in-law, William Tighe in 1811.