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

Osborne's Works

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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

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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 25 November 2024.]