Beschreibung:

EDMUND DOWNEY’S ARCHIVE A very large collection of letters, manuscripts and documents relating to literature, politics, journalism and publishing, from the archive of Edmund Downey (1856-1937). Born in Waterford, Downey was a prolific journalist, writer, publisher and newspaper editor, initially in late Victorian London and later on his return to Waterford.. His father was a shipowner, but went bankrupt after losing 3 ships in one year. Downey’s cousin, the novelist Richard Dowling, helped him to get work in London with Tinsley’s Magazine, where he later became editor. On leaving Tinsley’s he founded two publishing companies, first in partnership as Ward & Downey, and later on his own as Downey & Co. He was also for a time business manager of ‘T.P.’s Weekly’. As a publisher he reissued the works of Lever, Sheridan Le Fanu and the Bronte sisters, edited Lever’s Life and Letters, and published John O’Leary’s Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism as well as novels of his own (some under his wife’s name, ‘F.M. Allen’), books for young people, and reprints of many classics including Shakespeare and Dickens. He was evidently very successful; his catalogue for 1901 runs to some 30 pages. In 1906 he returned to Ireland and bought the Waterford News, which he edited for some thirty years, steering it as best he could through troubled times. A son died in the British forces in 1917; two years later his newspaper was suppressed by the British as ‘subversive’. When allowed to resume, he had to deal with censorship both from Dublin Castle and from local I.R.A. commandants, naturally in opposite directions. In 1923 his plant was destroyed by Free State soldiers. When he was awarded compensation, it was withheld to pay income tax arrears. Eventually he was almost bankrupted by a libel judgement. A Parnellite in his early years, he later supported Sinn Fein and became a friend of De Valera. He joined Fianna Fail on its foundation, and was an influential backroom supporter. He also published a literary magazine, Green and Gold, which printed (among others) the work of writers with Republican inclinations, such as Dorothy Macardle and Annie Smithson. His own later writings include The Story of Waterford and a book on Waterford’s bridges. Downey was evidently a diligent correspondent and researcher. The present archive includes well over 500 letters from all sorts of people, mostly relating to literature, local history, politics and publishing, mostly A.L.S., partly organised here in a ring-binder and three file-boxes, with others in three larger boxes. There are large groups of letters from W. Grattan Flood , the music historian (over 30, some about his publications); John S. Crone , the bio-bibliographer (10); Thomas Sexton (Waterford-born MP, 7 letters); William O’Brien of Mallow (3, 1916-25, ‘The time has come for the regeneration of the National movement, if all is not to end in bloody ruin ..’); Laurence Ginnell MP (3); George Count Plunkett (2); Katharine Tynan Hinkson (2, including a 1916 letter reporting on her son’s progress at Sandhurst, and describing a ‘huge response’ to her poems about ‘the poor boys in the War’); also the popular writer ‘Marie Corelli’ [Mary Mackay], offering to write for Downey but only if ‘your sympathies are with Ulster in the present crisis’ [July 1914]. Other writers include L. MacManus (7 letters and a card, 1918-24); M.J. McManus (2); James O. Hannay (better known as ‘George Birmingham’); the journalist and writer Liam Ó Riain [W.P. Ryan]; Julia M. Crottie (3); Swinburne’s friend T. Watts-Dunton , an interesting letter referring to Swinburne’s admiration for Downey’s work; Aodh de Blacam (5); Alfred Perceval Graves (3); Joseph Holloway (2); E.R. McC. Dix (2); Brinsley Le Fanu (illustrator and descendant of the writer, 5); Brian O’Higgins (2); G.F. FitzGerald of the Waterford family; Mollie Kenny of Exmouth, an unsuccessful novelist seeking advice, a thick file, including rejections from