Mary Barber

Mary Barber (1685-1755) claimed that she wrote “chiefly to form the Minds of my Children,” but her often satirical and comic verses suggest that she sought an adult audience as well. The wife of a clothier and mother of four children, she lived in Dublin and enjoyed the patronage of Jonathan Swift. While marriage, motherhood, friendship, education, and other domestic issues are her central themes, they frequently lead her to broader, biting social commentary.