Felicia Browne is born in Liverpool to George Browne, a well-to-do wine merchant of Irish aristocratic descent, and Felicity Wagner Browne, daughter of the imperial and Tuscan consul in Liverpool. Felicity Wagner Browne traced her heritage to a family of Venetian doges. Felicia Browne is the fifth of seven children, one of whom died in infancy.
*Poems by Felicia Dorothea Browne*, dedicated to the Prince of Wales and subvened by her parents, is published in a handsome quarto volume, in Liverpool and London, by T. Cadell and W. Davies. Although harshly reviewed, it has almost 1000 subscribers, including several members of the aristocracy, John Wilson Croker, Reginald Heber, Thomas Medwin (cousin of Percy Shelley), and Captain Alfred Hemans, of the 4th King's Own Regiment (in the Peninsular Campaign), who ordered three copies. After Medwin introduced Shelley to this volume and reported the author's great beauty, Shelley sought to initiate a correspondence, but Mrs. Browne squelched the proposal. With Cadell and Davies and again by subscription, Felicia Browne also publishes *England and Spain; or Valour and Patriotism*, expressing her enthusiasm for the campaign agains Napoleon, in which, in addition to Captain Hemans, two of her brothers were serving in the 23rd Regiment (the Royal Welsh Fusiliers), one of them under Sir John Moore. *England and Spain* is later translated into Spanish.
Felicia Hemnas publishes *The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy: A Poem* "By a Lady"; perhaps flattered by its epigraph from him, Bryon admires it: "It is a good poem--very," he writes to his publisher John Murray, who purchases the copyright from Hemans for 70 pounds and prints 1000 copies. It is the first of her volumes to gain critical and popular attention but did not make much money for Murray.
Felicia Hemans's *Modern Greece,* about the Greek Revolution, published by Murray (without her name on the title page); instead of purchasing the copyright, Murray agrees to split the profits after expenses and prints only 500 copies. Byron criticizes the poem to Murray as "good for nothing--written by someone who has never been there." Yet the edition will sell out in 1821 with Murray and Hemans splitting a profit of over 50 pounds.
Hemans *Tales and Historical Scenes in Verse* published by Murray, who again declines to purchase the copyright but agrees to split the profits (about 120 pounds by 1821). With good reviews and a sold-out first edition, it goes into a second edition. Hemans wins a 50-pound prize for *Wallace's Invocation to Bruce* (a competition that attracts James Hogg among its many entrants). It appears in *Blackwood's* in September; John Wilson reviews it appreciatively, putting Hemans in a female Pantheon: "Scotland has her Baillie--Ireland her Tighe--England her Hemans." In November, Hemans sends Gifford, Murray's literary advisor and editor, *The Skeptic* for his opinion.
From this year on, Hemans's average annual earnings are over 200 pounds. "The Seige of Valencia, a Dramatic Poem," published by Murray, in *The Last Constantine and Other Poems* in a print run of 1000. Murray also issues a second edition of *Tales and Historic Scenes.* Hemans becomes a regular contributor to the *New Monthly* and receives 210 pounds from Murray (anticipating success) for the copyright for the *Vespers of Palermo,* a verse tragedy about the Italian insurrection against the French in 1283. Not really intended for the stage, it sparks the enthusiasm of Heber and Henry Milman who urge its performance in London at Covent Garden; featuring Charles Young and Charles Kemble in the role of the tormented hero, it opens on 12 December and bombs, closing after one performance (the failure attributed to inept acting in the female roles).
From 1826 to 1832, Hemans publishes almost 100 poems in about a dozen different annuals, including *The Literary Souvenir* and *Winter's Wreath.* In America, Norton edits a 4-volume collected Hemans, and she profits handsomely from the American market.
As a result of Murray's financial losses and his reluctance to publish poetry, Hemans is forced to get a new publisher. *Records of Woman with Other Poems,* dedicated to Joanna Baillie and with epigraphs from Wordsworth and Schiller, is published by Blackwood in Edinburgh, by Cadell in London (1000 copies), and edited by Norton for an American publication in Boston; the British edition is pirated by a New York publisher. A fifth edition of her collected works appears in America. John Wilson's "Noctes Ambrosianae" praises her talents in *Blackwood's.* By mid-summer, Hemans earns 75 pounds for *Records* and Blackwood plans a second edition. When Hemans suggests to him a second edition of *The Forest Sanctuary* bound with *Lays of Many Lands,* he agrees, advancing her 150 pounds against likely success. This new edition, published in 1829, contains her most famous poem "Casabianca," appearing here for the first time. The volume is so successful that Blackwood, from this time forward, pays her 100 pounds for her books in advance of publication. Francis Jeffrey gives a praising retrospective review of her talents, with specific attention to *Records of Woman* and *The Forest Sanctuary,* in *Edinburgh Review* in October.