Poems by Speranza. New Edition. Dublin: Gill, [1907]. Pp iv, 181. Publisher’s green cloth boards, title in gilt to spine, ornate Celtic boarder in blind to covers. School Prize bookplate to front pastedown. A nice bright copy.

Beginning in 1845, Lady Wilde contributed both prose and verse for the Irish nationalist journal “The Nation,” under the pseudonym “Speranza,” until it was suppressed for sedition in 1848. In that journal’s final issue Lady Wilde penned a militant essay entitled “Jacta alea est,” which was used as evidence in the unsuccessful prosecution of its editor, Charles Gavan Duffy, for sedition.

Her collection of Poems is dedicated to her two sons “Willie” and Oscar, & includes much nationalist verse.