Life
?-1829 [Mrs. Margaret (Graves) Derenzy; prob. née Graves]; The Old Irish Knight: A Milesian Tale of the Fifth Century (1828); Parnassian Geographer (1824), and The Flowers of the Forest (1828).
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Works
Parnassian Geography; or, the Little Ideal Wanderer (London: Wellington, Salop [1824]), Poems Appropriate for a Sick or a Melancholy Hour (London; Wellington, Salop [1824]), 203, [1]pp., ill. 2 pls. 8o.; The Old Irish Knight: A Milesian Tale of the Fifth Century (London: Poole & Edwards 1828), 186pp.; The Flowers of the Forest (London [Patenoster Row]: Wellington, Salop; printed by and for Houlston and Son [...] 1828), 142pp., front. 12o.; A Walk to Weller's Wood; or, The Old Apple-man [3rd edn.] London: Wellington, Salop 1832), 31pp., 16o. [fiction].
Also attrib., A Whisper to a Married Pair, &c. (Calcutta: Lewis & Co. 1886), ii, 113pp., 8o. [date sic COPAC; and note, some other works mentioned on title-pages.]
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References
Stephen Brown (Ireland in Fiction, 1919), writes one of his most dismissive notes for M. G. Derenzy, author of The Old Irish Knight: A Milesian Tale of the Fifth Century (London: Poole & Edwards 1828), 128pp., which he finds to be full of absurd anachronisms in spite of an apparent desire to be archaeologically correct - thus locating long lines of arches in Irish monasteries of the period and speaking likewise of the purchase of the finest organ in Europe for one of same; ‘the story does not hang together ... merely a string of disjointed incidents, most of them wholly improbable.’ Derenzy also wrote A Whisper to a Newly-wed Pair, Parnassian Geography (q.d.; but see COPAC, supra).
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Notes
Obit. - Margaret Graves Derenzy is said to have died in 1829 in the Edinburgh Univ. Library Catalogue, though titles attributed to her reach into the 1830s and even in one instance as late as 1886 [prob. err.].
Kith & Kin (1): See also the Doom of Derenzie (1829) by Thomas Furlong (q.v.), a poem celebrating the rapacious treachery and magical death of a member of the Wexford landlord lineage.
Kith & Kin (2): See William Ridgeway, A report of the Trial of William Congreve Alcock, and Henry Derenzy, Esqrs. on an indictment for the murder of John Colclough, Esq. at Wexford Assizes, 26th March, 1808, before the Hon. Baron Smith (Dublin: Graisberry & Campbell [10 Back-lane; sold by M.N. Mahon [...] Grafton-street 1808), [1] 2-85, [1]pp. Note that Ridgeway also reported the trial of Robert Emmet.
Kith & Kin (3): Sundry Derenzys were active in India incl. Dr. Derenzy, part-author of a report on the proceeedings of the Governor of Punjab (i.e., the prisons), poss. the same as Surgeon-General A.C.C. De Renzy who co-authored The Sanitary State of British Troops in Northern India (1882) and wrote on ‘the prevention of heat apoplexy’ in 1885.
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