DAUGHTERS OF IRELAND: The Rebellious Kingsborough Sisters and the Making of a Modern Nation

Todd is the biographer of Mary Wollstonecraft, and the early feminist firebrand plays an important part in this well-researched and skillfully written look at the aristocratic, Irish Protestant King family, in particular the sisters Margaret and Mary and the role they played in the ill-fated 1798 Irish Rising. Todd asserts that Wollstonecraft, who served as a governess to the King children, had a crucial impact on the two young women, encouraging them to think for themselves and to question authority, especially their self-absorbed mother. Eventually, Charlotte King dismissed the governess for "encouraging insubordinate behavior." Todd does a fine job placing the King family in an age of revolutionary fervor in Europe. She explores the tense years before the 1798 Rising and stresses how political differences split the King family. Margaret joined the republican United Irishmen, while her brother George became a leading loyalist to the Crown. Mary was a rebel on the domestic front—still a teenager, she had an affair with a married cousin, Henry Fitzgerald, which led her father, Robert, to kill Fitzgerald. Todd explores the scandal and the sensational murder trial of Robert, who was acquitted, as well as describing the simultaneous 1798 Rising of the United Irishmen. Informers in high places doomed the Rising, and Ireland was soon incorporated into Great Britain. George King played a central role in quelling the rebellion, much to sister Margaret's chagrin. Todd has written an excellent historical account of one fascinating Irish family and how it influenced Ireland during a crucial period of its history. 8 pages of illus. not seen by PW. (On sale Feb. 10)