TO ALEXANDER SPENCER, ESQ.

If the public would only prove as indulgent to the faults and demerits of this volume as You have ever been to those of him who wrote it, I should be as sanguine of its success as I am now happy in dedicating it to the Oldest Friend I HAVE IN THE WORLD.

Ever yours, most affectionately,

Charles Lever.

Schloss-Riedenburg, Tyrol,

Pertinent Section from "The Preface"

I tried to display the effect of this strange teaching on the mind of a cultivated gentleman when describing the Knight of Gwynne. I endeavored to show the "Irishry" of his nature was no other than the play of those qualities by which he appreciated his countrymen and was appreciated by them. So powerful is this sympathy, and so strong the sense of national humor through all classes of the people, that each is able to entertain a topic from the same point of view as his neighbor, and the subtle équivoque in the polished witticism that amuses the gentleman is never lost on the untutored ear of the unlettered peasant. Is there any other land of which one can say as much?

If this great feature of attractiveness pertains to the country and adds to its adaptiveness as the subject of fiction, I cannot but feel that to un-Irish ears it is necessary to make an explanation which will serve to show that which would elsewhere imply a certain blending of station and condition, is here but a proof of that widespread understanding by which, however divided by race, tradition, and religion, we are always able to appeal to certain sympathies and dispositions in common, and feel the tie of a common country.

At the period in which I have placed this story the rivalry between the two nations was, with all its violence, by no means ungenerous. No contemptuous estimate of Irishmen formed the theme of English journalism; and between the educated men of both countries there was scarcely a jealousy that the character which political contest assumed later on, changed much of this spirit and dyed nationalities with an amount of virulence which, with all its faults and all its shortcomings, we do not find in the times of the Knight of Gwynne.

CHARLES LEVER.

Trieste, 1872.

Commentary: The Opening Situation

In the middle of the 19th century, the rivalry between English and Irish nations was, with all its violence, by no means ungenerous. The political contest was bringing out the worst qualities out on the surface. In the era of the gross corruption where only a few resisted offers and temptations, giving Ireland the stain of a weaker country, lived Maurice Darcy, known far and wide as the Knight of Gwynne. Darcy was a cultivated gentleman with highlighted "Irishry" in his nature. He was a well-known leader of public opinion which made him valuable political ally. In the newest political turmoil, scared that Darcy might go with the opposition, three powerful men, forming the new Government in Dublin, decided to gain the support of the Knight of Gwynne no matter what it costs, unaware of the price of an honest man. — Barnes and Noble description

Ironically, although the novel was published just prior to mid-century as the above description suggests, Lever has expressly set the opening of The Knight of Gwynne forty-five years before the January 1846 instalment. Lever underscores this point in his subtitle, A Tale of the Time of the Union, in other words, when the Commons in London and the Dublin Parliament ratified The Acts of Union 1800, parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland.

The upper figures on the title-page bear no particular relevance to the story proper, as any serial reader would have been aware. As yet the volume reader will not be able to identify the jolly, middle-aged Irishman in the bottom vignette, nor the young woman with the beach parasol, nor the seaside village in the backdrop. These elements appear in the twenty-second illustration, Mr. Paul Dempsey does the honours of Ballintray (facing p. 312). But such images of a benign and bourgeois Ireland do not coincide with the melodramatic first half of the narrative, including the political machinations surrounding the passage of the Act of Union; the starving, ragged street-people of Dublin; the Iritish nationalism of Bagenal Daly; and the bankruptcy of the Knight of Gwynne precipitated by "Honest" Tom Gleeson's absconding with a fortune he has raised on the money markets as Darcy's agent.

Geographical and Socio-political Associations: Victorian Ireland

• The Landscape of Ireland
• Westport
• Britain, Ireland, and the disastrous 1801 Act of Union
• Victorian Ireland
• The Irish Famine: 1845-49

Scanned images and commentary by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Barnes & Noble. " The Knight of Gwynne Complete, by Charles James Lever. Paperback. Create Space Publishing. 06/08/2015." Web. Accessed 31 July 2023.

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'" Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.

Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union. London: Chapman and Hall, serialised January 1846 through July 1847.

Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 28 February 2018.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter IX, "Nomadic Patriarch, 1845-1847." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 146-164.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

Created 310 July 2023