She was one of the most vivid and hotly discussed literary figures of her generation. She began her career with a precocious volume of poems. She collected Irish tunes, for which she composed the words, thus setting a fashion adopted with signal success by Thomas Moore. Her novel "St. Clair" (1804), about ill-judged marriage, ill-starred love and impassioned nature worship, in which the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (specifically his novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther") and Jean-Jacques Rousseau was apparent, at once attracted attention. Another novel, "The Novice of St. Dominick" (1806), was also praised for its qualities of imagination and description.