Born: 1852, Ireland
Died: 29 June 1920
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: K.F Purdon
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Lawrence William White and Carmel Doyle. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Purdon, Katherine Frances (1852–1920), author, was born at Hotwell, near Enfield, Co. Meath, second daughter among six children of Henry Purdon, a farmer, of a family originally from Co. Cork; her mother was the daughter of a Dublin clock maker. Educated at Alexandra college, Dublin, she visited England and Germany before returning to her family home, where she spent the rest of her life. A contributor of gardening articles over many years to the Irish Homestead, she attracted a wide readership for her many poems, stories, and articles in Irish and British periodicals. Her work also appeared in the annual literary supplement, A Celtic Christmas, published by the Irish Homestead under the editorship of George Russell (‘Æ’). Jack B. Yeats often provided illustrations for her stories. Her many writings for children included her first two books, The song of the lark (n.d.) and The fortunes of Flot: a dog story, mainly fact (1910). Her first novel, The folk of Furry Farm (1914), proved an immediate success, welcomed as a rare venture into the genre by a writer associated with the literary revival, and for giving a voice to the Irish midlands, a region largely neglected by other writers. Set like many of her stories in the fictional townland of Ardenoo, the book, with its affectionate portrayal of a diverse cast of characters, bespeaks her close observation of the idiom, manners, and folkways of the small-farmer class along the Meath–Kildare borders. The novella Candle and crib (1914), illustrated by Beatrice Elvery, draws on the conventions of the Christian miracle play to re-tell the Christmas manger story in a contemporary setting; Purdon’s own stage adaptation was produced posthumously at the Abbey Theatre in December 1920. In her second novel, Dinny of the doorstep (1918), she depicts the lives of poor children in the squalid Dublin tenements, indicting without stridency the indifference of the affluent to their circumstances. The episode in the novel of ‘Katty the wren’ is typical of her sympathy for animals, as are two posthumously published books, Kevin and the cats (1921) and Spanish Lily; or, Only an ass (1921); the latter, an ‘autobiography’ of a donkey, was republished often in later years by the Educational Company of Ireland for the intermediate-certificate curriculum. Praised by such critics as Russell, George Birmingham, and Susan Mitchell, Purdon’s work expressed her broad human sympathy – a curiosity in, and an affection for, ‘the people about’ – and her special identity with the weak: children, animals, the socially marginal. The humour that pervades her writing is warm and gentle, never satiric. In an article published in the Englishwoman magazine in 1918 she discussed the aims and achievements of the United Irishwomen organisation, forerunner of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association. She died unmarried at Hotwell on 29 June 1920, and was buried in Agher, Co. Meath.