Margaret King was born in Dublin in 1772 to Robert King, Viscount Kingsborough, later third Earl of Kingston, and his wife Caroline, née Fitzgerald. As a child, she had Mary Wollstonecraft as a governess. She became Lady Mount Cashell in 1791...
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Margaret King was born in Dublin in 1772 to Robert King, Viscount Kingsborough, later third Earl of Kingston, and his wife Caroline, née Fitzgerald. As a child, she had Mary Wollstonecraft as a governess. She became Lady Mount Cashell in 1791 upon marrying Stephen Moore, second Earl of Mount Cashell, with whom she had eight children. She left her unhappy marriage in 1805 for a life in Italy where she adopted the name "Mrs. Mason," after the heroine of Wollstonecraft's children's book, Original Stories. Mrs. Mason wrote her own children's books for William Godwin's Juvenile Library publishing firm, and was an important friend to Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley when they chose exile in Italy. Eventually settling in Pisa, Mrs. Mason lived in union with George Tighe (1776-1837), an Irish gentleman and agricultural theorist, with whom she had two daughters, Laura (1809-1880) and Nerina (1815-1874). Laura (married names Galloni and Tardy) published fiction in Italian under the pseudonym "Sara." Nerina married Bartolomeo Cini (1809-1877), of the Cini paper-making family. In 1827 Mrs. Mason and George Tighe separated; that same year, she founded the literary society Accademia dei Lunatici. A few years before her 1835 death she returned to calling herself Lady Mount Cashell. Collection consists primarily of correspondence, in English and Italian; also includes writings by Lady Mount Cashell (her unpublished manuscript novel, Selene; a five-page autobiographical summary; various translations for the Italian edition of her Advice to Young Mothers; essay drafts on moral and religious subjects; some verses, etc.), George Tighe (a memoir of Italian travels, a history of Pisa), and Laura Tighe (a portion of her journal, a volume of verses, a story in Italian under the name "Sara"), as well as some portraits and family documents.
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