She worked on this novel through a recurrence of ill health: sleeplessness, neuralgia, and a failure of vitality. She dedicated it to Hyacinthe, Lady Dalby
, who had supplied the material for A Garland of...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Wesley
Her grandmother Hyacinthe Dalby
, in her time a strong-minded and passionate woman, gave the child Mary a love which was ardently reciprocated, but she died when Mary was only thirteen.
Marnham, Patrick. Wild Mary: the Life of Mary Wesley. Chatto and Windus, 2006.
26-7
Textual Features
Mary Linskill
She based this story on one which Hyacinthe, Lady Dalby
(wife of an eminent physician) had related, about a great-aunt of hers who had twice in succession eloped from her husband with her lover. Linskill...
