Granny's Wonderful Chair

About the Book
Granny's Wonderful Chair

One of the really successful modern attempts at telling new fairy stories was Granny's Wonderful Chair (1857) by the blind poet France Browne (1816-1887). In spite of the obstacles due to blindness, poverty and ill-health, she succeeded in educating herself, and after achieving some fame as a poet left her mountain village in county Donegal, Ireland, to make a literary career in Edinburgh and London. She published many volumes of poems, novels, and children's books. Only one of these is now much read or remembered, but it has taken a firm place in the affec­tions of children. In Granny's Wonderful Chair there are seven stories, set in an interesting framework, which tells of the adventures of the little girl Snowflower and her chair at the court of King Winwealth. This chair had magic power to transport Snowflower wherever she wished to go, like the magic carpet in the Arabian Nights. When she laid down her head and said, "Chair of my grandmother, tell me a story," a clear voice from under the cushion would at once begin to speak.

About the Author
Frances Browne

Frances Browne (January 16, 1816 – August 21, 1879) was an Irish poet and novelist, best remembered for her collection of short stories for children: Granny's Wonderful Chair.

She was born at Stranorlar, in County Donegal, Ireland, the seventh child in a family of twelve children. She was blind from infancy as a consequence of an attack of smallpox when she was only 18 months old. In her writings, she recounts how she learned by heart the lessons which her brothers and sisters said aloud every evening, and how she bribed them to read to her by doing their chores. She then worked hard at memorising all that she had heard. She wrote her first poem, a version of "The Lord's Prayer", when she was seven years of age.

In 1841, her first poems were published in the Irish Penny Journal and in the London Athenauem. One of those included in the Irish Penny Journal was the beautiful lyric, "Songs of Our Land" which can be found in many anthologies of Irish patriotic verse. She published a complete volume of poems in 1844, and a second volume in 1847. The provincial newspapers, especially the Belfast-based Northern Whig reprinted many of her poems and she became widely known as 'The Blind Poetess of Ulster'. In 1845 she made her first contribution to the popular magazine Chambers's Journal and she wrote for this journal for the next 25 years. The first short story that she had published in the Journal was entitled, "The Lost New Year's Gift". It appeared in March 1845 and tells the tragic tale of a poor dressmaker in London. It displays Frances Browne's fine abilities as a storyteller.