Friday, September 3, 2021

On the Trail of an Early Lost Dunsany Publication

Lord Dunsany's first known publication was an eighteen-line poem, "Rhymes from a Suburb," which appeared in The Pall Mall Magazine for September 1897. It is signed "Edward Plunkett" because the title of "Lord Dunsany" did not pass on to him (Edward) until the death of his father in 1899. ("Rhymes from a Suburb" was republished as an attractive broadside by Pegana Press in 2009, for ordering information see here, and scroll down the page.) 

But recently I came across a new-to-me reference to what appears to be another very early publication. It comes in a letter from 1897 by Dunsany's uncle, Horace Plunkett (1854-1932), to Lady Betty Balfour. It reads:

See in the next Homestead, or September Pall Mall Magazine, p. 135, some lines by a nephew of mine, aetat 18. They are a happiness to me. If you knew the boy and his parents you would marvel at the product of his brain. He has a talent for chess and for upsetting things. He can draw a nightmare, but that he can write simple and rather musical English is a revelation which gladdens the avuncular heart. (quoted in Horace Plunkett: An Anglo-American Irishman (1949), by Margaret Digby, p. 152)
We don't have the exact date of the letter (beyond 1897), and young Edward Plunkett would have turned 19 on 24th of July 1897. Since Horace give the page number of the September Pall Mall Magazine, it was evidently already published (perhaps in August), and The Irish Homestead was a weekly newspaper founded in 1895 by Horace Plunkett (and edited by others). So, evidently the next issue after this letter was written was to have something in it by "Edward Plunkett." This would likely be circa August to October 1897. I don't have easy access presently to The Irish Homestead to look for it. Perhaps someone reading this does, and can look for whatever it is and share the result, which I'd be happy to post here. 

4 comments:

  1. The Pall Mall Gazette of 20 August 1897 has an advert for the September Pall Mall Magazine which includes Rhymes from a Suburb by Hon Edward Plunkett. The ad says it is 'NOW READY' and so I wonder if the elusive earlier publication is actually the September one of which you know.

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  2. Thanks, Geoff. It still seems to me that there must be something in the Homestead. Perhaps it's the same poem (getting Irish publication), or something else....

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  3. There is an Edward Plunkett who runs the Great Northern Hotel in Dublin ('every home comfort'}who confuses results. The earliest advert for his poem that I have found is 18 August. The Irish Homestead adverts never mention him but I have found him (as Hon Edward Plunkett) setting chess problems in newspapers! Very niche.

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