Jane Barlow (1) (1857–1917)

Jane Barlow was born in Clontarf, a suburb of Dublin, a daughter of the Rev. James William Barlow, vice-provost of Trinity College, Dublin. She lived for most of her life in a thatched cottage at Raheny and at Howth. She wrote prose and poetry sketches of Irish life, including the Irish potato famine, beginning with Bog-land Studies (1892). Her subsequent books included Irish Idylls (1892), Kerrigan’s Quality (1893), The End of Elfintown (1894), The Battle of the Frogs and Mice (1894), Nansen’s Fairing (1895), Strangers at Lisconnel (1895), Mrs. Martin’s Company (1896), From the East unto the West (1898), From the Land of the Shamrock (1900), Ghost-Bereft (1901), The Founding of Fortunes (1902), By Beach and Bogland (1905). She also used pseudonyms, including Antares Skorpios (technically a House Name, as her father, J.W. Barlow, later used that name for a novel) and Felix Ryark. A Strange Land (1908) as by Felix Ryark is a Lost Race tale whose protagonist, penetrating a mysterious mist in a tiny boat, comes across the land in question, which is not described in much detail.