William Curry


Life
?-1846 [William Curry, Jr.]; Irish publisher, chiefly to Protestant writers; published William Carleton’s Traits and Stories, Series 1 (1830), and the ensuing corrected edition of same with Simpkin & Marshall of London and Oliver & Boyd of Edinburgh (1832); also issued his Tales of Ireland (1834), though not the Traits & Stories’s 2nd series 1833, or the jointed edition of 1836 - both of which were published in Dublin by Wakeman;
 
Curry published Charles Lever's novels and was later engaged in copyright disputes over these with Chapman and Hall in London, c.1845; after his death his business was briefly carried by James McGlashan [q.v.], who had been a partner since 1837, but succombed to bankruptcy in the shrinking Irish market of the post-famine period, 1847; William Carleton removed his copyright to London printers and to Duffy in Dublin. SUTH

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Works
Curry publications incl.
  • [Caesar] Otway, Sketches in Ireland descriptive of interesting, and hitherto unnoticed districts, in the north and south by ‘C.O’ [sic] (Dublin: William Curry Jun. & Co. M,DCCC,XVII [1827]), 411pp. + 2pp. adverts [see under Otway for details].
  • [anon.,] The Outcast: A Story of the Modern Reformation (Dublin: William Curry, Jun. & Co.; London: Hurst, Chance & Co. 1830), 18°. [details] No copy of 1st edn. located; 2nd edn. (rev. & corr. 1831) held in BL with prefatory remarks: ‘A work [...] intended to be useful among them [infidels] - and they are the persons chiefly that can be reached by such means - must meet and refute these anti-revelation principles, at the same time that it brings forward and urges the leading doctrines of the Gospel, and exhibits, in the most pleasing dress, the fair form of genuine religion' (Preface, pp.[i]–iii; p.iii). [Source: English Novels 1830-36: A Bibliography of British Fiction, at CEIR Cardiff online.]
  • [William Hickey, pseud Martin Doyle,] Irish Cottagers, by Mr. Martin Doyle Author of Hints to Small Farmers (Dublin: William Curry, jun. and Co. 9, Upper Sackville-Street, Hurst, Chance, and Co. London, and Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1830), 137p. 12°. [See further under William Hickey, q.v.].
  • The Martyr of Prusa, or the First and Last Prayer; a Tale of the Early Christians (Dublin: William Curry, Jun. and Company, 9, Upper Sackville-Street, 1830), viii, 144pp.. 18°; sole copy in TCD Lib. Preface, pp.[iii]–viii, dated ‘April 25th, 1829’, implies male authorship and asserts a conscious choice of anonymity: ‘The Author’s name could add no weight to the truths brought forward in the following story; and its absence can in no wise detract from their importance’ (p.iv). Heavily didactic narrative, dealing with Christian martyrdom in Roman times. 2pp. Adverts. leaf for ‘Works Published by William Curry, jun. and Co.’ between Preface and beginning of a main text; no printer information found. collates in twelves and sixes. [Source: English Novels 1830-36: A Bibliography of British Fiction, at CEIR / Cardiff - online.]
  • Selina Martin, The Protesant Rector, or Tale of the Other Times in Ireland. By the Author of “A Narrative of Three Years Residence in Italy” (London: Published by J. Nisbet, Berner’s-Street, 1830), 216pp.,
  • [...].

See also William Carleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry [First Ser.], 2 vols. (Dublin: William Curry) [as given fully under Carleton, q.v., supra.]
 

Titles listed in endpapers of Father Butler and The Lough Dearg Pilgrim [2nd Edn.] (Curry Jun. & Co. 1839) incl:
  • Tales of Ireland by William Carleton [1834].
  • Villeroi, or Religion founded on Principle, not on Excitement.
  • A Visit to my Birthplace.
  • Recollections of Ireland, by author of Visit to my Birthplace.
  • Abbey of Inismoyle.
  • My Own Story, by the author of A Visit to My Birthplace.
  • The Indian Brothers; Facts and Authentic Sketches illustrative of Eastern Manners and Character, as connected with the Progress of Christianity in India.
  • The Martyr of Prusa, a Tale of Early Christians.
  • Nature and Grace Exemplified, by the wife of a Clergyman [2nd edn.; improved].
  • Ellmer Castle, A Roman Catholic Story of the Nineteenth Century [5th edn.].
  • Edmond O'Hara, by the author of Ellmer Castle [2nd edn.].
—See online at Google Books - online; accessed 25.11.2011.

Bibliographical details
[anon.,] The Outcast: A Story of the Modern Reformation (Dublin: William Curry, Jun. & Co.; London: Hurst, Chance & Co. 1830), 18°. [no copy located] No copy of 1st edn. located; 2nd edn. (rev. & corr. 1831) held in BL with prefatory remarks: ‘A work [...] intended to be useful among them [infidels] - and they are the persons chiefly that can be reached by such means - must meet and refute these anti-revelation principles, at the same time that it brings forward and urges the leading doctrines of the Gospel, and exhibits, in the most pleasing dress, the fair form of genuine religion' (Preface, pp.[i]–iii; p.iii). [Source: British Novels 1830-36 at CEIR Cardiff online.]

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Commentary
Selina Bunbury: William Curry is the subject of remarks in the preface to Combe Abbey, where Bunbury claims that her first work, My Birthplace, was the also the earliest copyright book published in Ireland after the Act of Union. Comparing the publishing climate then and later, she writes: ‘I wish that progression of all things else in Ireland - moral, domestic or commercial - bore some affinity to that which the printing press has made.’ William Curry was the publisher in both cases; Coombe is illustrated and well bound.

James Cahalan, The Irish Novel (1982), refers to three Dublin publishers during this ‘pathetic period of Irish book publishing, with only three publishers on the scene in Dublin - William Curry, James McGlashan, and James Duffy - smothered or ruined [such] promising talents’ (p.75).

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References
James Sutherland, Victorian Novelists and Publishers (London: London UP / The Athlone Press 1976) gives an account of the dispute between Chapman & Hall in London and Curry in Dublin.

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Notes
Selina Bunbury notes improved standards in these terms: ‘I wish that progression of all things else in Ireland-moral, domestic or commercial-bore some affinity to that which the printing press has made.’ (Preface to Coombe Abbey (1844).

William Curry (d. 1846) published Lever’s fiction; succeeded by James McGlashan [q.v.]. See also thesis, held by Colin Smythe, and search for bibliography.

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