Dorothy Osborne

Kenneth Parker (University of East London)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.04: English Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century, 1625-1688.
Vol. editors: Jennifer Brady (Rhodes College), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Neil Forsyth (Université de Lausanne), Claire Preston (Queen Mary, University of London), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University)

Dates

Born 1627
Died 1695
Activity 1652-1690

Places

Born in England
Active in England; Ireland, Republic of (Eire); Netherlands

Activities

Primary

Letter-writer/ Diarist

Resources

Dorothy Osborne (1627-95), letter-writer, came from a gentry family with a distinguished record in English public life. She was the youngest daughter of Sir Peter Osborne (1585-1654), Treasurer's Remembrancer of the Exchequer and royalist governor of the Channel Islands, based at Castle Cornet, Guernsey, during the Civil War, and of Dorothy Danvers (1590-1650), of Dauntsey, Wilts. She was born at Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire, a Gilbertine monastery dating back to the 12th Century but evacuated in 1538 and eventually becoming the property of her great- grandfather, Peter Osborne (1521-92), Keeper of the Privy Purse and Treasure's Remembrancer of the Exchequer .

Dorothy Osborne met William Temple, the recipient of her letters, on the Isle of Wight in 1648, when, accompanied by her younger brother, Henry, she was on her way to St. Malo, France, to visit...

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987 words

Citation: Parker, Kenneth. "Dorothy Osborne". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 October 2000 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3435, accessed 10 June 2026.]