Isa Blagden

Isa or Isabella Jane Blagden (30 June 1816 or 1817 – 20 January 1873) was an English-language novelist, speaker, and poet born in the East Indies or India, who spent much of her life among the English community in Florence.

In Florence Blagden had a comfortable income (possibly an allowance from her father and later his estate) and was remembered as a kind, generous friend, notably to the Browning, Bulwer-Lytton and Trollope families.

[1] Blagden's earliest pieces were two poems inspired by the work of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, which appeared in The Metropolitan Magazine in July 1842 and April 1843.

[1] Her writing often concerned women's occupations and independence, female artistic genius, mesmerism and spiritualism, and moral rather than physical beauty.

[5] Blagden's manuscript poems were collected posthumously by Linda Mazini and published in 1873, with a memoir by Alfred Austin – to the annoyance of Robert Browning, who disliked him[citation needed].

[6] Presumably for financial reasons, Blagden took up writing for periodicals, beginning with a biographical essay on the sculptor Felicie de Fauveau in the October 1858 number of the English Woman's Journal.