Jim Cooke
The Author Jim Cooke is a teacher and historian, He has published14 books including Ireland's Premier Coach builder: the story of John Hutton and Sons Summerhill, Dublin which arose directly from his Dickens lecture to the Dublin Society. The same lecture has
given rise to this book.The Book
As a young boy Charles Dickens ( 1812-1870) would climb with his sister, Fanny, onto the dining table and Sing Some of Tom Moore's 'Irish Melodies'. His novels are interspersed with references to the Melodies. As a young parliamentary reporter Dickens recorded Daniel O'Connell, the Irish Liberator, and they retained a certain mutual admiration throughout their lives. Dickens had many Irish friends including Daniel Maclise, the painter, and Percy Fitzgerald who wrote for his weekly journals Household Words ( 1850-1858) and All The Year Round ( 1859 until his death).
These journals are littered with Irish articles, Commissioned and edited by Dickens and portray Dickensian Dublin and Dickensian Ireland in insightful and lively articles which comprise the main portion of this book. But Dickens, too, visited Ireland himself -Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Belfast, on his reading tours in 1858, 1867, and 1869 the year before he died, He sent out many letters from the Shelbourne Hotel Dublin, and elsewhere, describing his Irish triumphs. He was hailed with delight everywhere he went, The Freeman's Journal declared 'Mr. Dickens is the greatest reader of the greatest writer of the age', This Irish, tribute records the glory of Dickens in Ireland and this book recreates the world of that bygone, but still remembered, age.
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