Lady Morgan (Sydney Owenson) (1776-1859) was an Irish novelist. She was one of the most vivid and hotly discussed literary figures of her generation. She began her career with a precocious volume of poems. The Novice of St. Dominick (1806) was praised for its qualities of imagination and description, but the book which made her reputation and brought her name into warm controversy was The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale (1806). In 1814 she produced her best novel, O'Donnell: A National Tale. Amongst her other works are Woman; or, Ida of Athens (1809), France (1817), Italy (1821) and The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys (1827).