Mrs. Frederic West

Theresa Cornwallis West, usually published as Mrs. F. West or Mrs. Frederic West, was a British writer born in 1806 and died in 1886. She is most closely associated with A Summer Visit to Ireland in 1846, a travel narrative published in 1847 after a journey through Ireland during the early famine years.

Available records also link her to later fiction, including writing for children and young adults as well as adult novels such as The Doom of Doolandour. Library and catalog sources show her work appearing under several forms of her name, which helps explain why she can be a little hard to track down.

What makes her especially interesting today is the mix of voices in her writing: part traveler, part observer, and part novelist. For listeners who enjoy Victorian nonfiction and forgotten women writers, she offers a window into 19th-century Britain and Ireland through a personal, readable lens.