The Curry Advertiser following page 410 in the November 1845 edition issued by William Curry, Junior, in Dublin, and illustrated by "Phiz" for the eleven-month serialisation of Charles Lever's The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago (January through November 1845).
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Commentary
William Curry's chief connection with the early work of Charles Lever was that he was the Dublin publisher of The Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal, for which Lever served as editor from 1842. Not actually affiliated with Trinity College, the magazine had its origins with the half-dozen literary men of Trinity College who founded it in January 1833; six months later Curry, a bookseller in Sackville Street, purchased it. Stevenson notes that "in 1834 the editorship was assumed by a particularly able young collegian, Isaac Butt" (51). Lever's initial contribution was the short story "The Black Mask," a Gothic tale which Curry published in March 1836 as the kind of piece that often appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine or "Maga." The magazine Scots agent, James McGlashan, became the publisher in 1846.
The "Advertiser" is noteworthy in that, in advertising Lever's novels, Curry makes much of the number of illustrations by Phiz: forty-four for Tom Burke, twenty-two for Lorrequer, forty-four for Charles O'Malley, twenty-six for The O'Donoghue, and "a fine Portrait of the Author, and numerous illustrations by Phiz" in Jack Hinton, but is silent about the identities of the illustrators for other titles. Aside from Lever's novels, Curry seems to be publishing a dozen books about Ireland.
Bibliography
Lever, Charles. The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. With 26 engravings by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1845.
Lever, Charles. The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. In One Vol. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: May 11, 2010.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VIII, "Heretic Among Tories, 1844-1845." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 128-145.
Sutherland, John A. "Lever, Charles." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 372-374.
Created 9 August 2023