SKETCHES IN IRELAND, DESCRIPTIVE OF INTERESTING PORTIONS OF THE COUNTIES OF DONEGAL, CORK, AND KERRY
Dublin, Ireland: William Curry, Jun. and Company, 9 Upper Sackville Street, [1827] 1832. Second Edition, Corrected. Hardcover. Small 8vo. xvi, [2 (divisional title], 383, [1 (advt.)] pp. Original publisher's scarlet cloth over boards, horizontally ribbed, with elaborate floriated border, decoratively blocked in blind. Gilt lettering and designs to spine. Perhaps a tiny bit of biopredation (some might rudely say "nibbling") to just the very tippy-tips of the corners). Rubbing to extremities. Solidly bound. All edges gilt.
Yellow endpapers. Armorial bookplate to front pastedown, of "John Stafford Reid Byers" featuring three bees and a crowing cock atop the shield. With the (Byers) family crest and banner reading "Marte Suo Tutus" (Safe By His Own Exertions). Very Good. Item #88647
Author Otway (b. Co. Tipperary, 1780), an Anglican clergyman, was deeply interested in Irish history and topography, and in the condition, both social and religious, of the Irish peasantry. His various concerns found expression in his foundation of The Christian Examiner" (1825), in his collaboration with George Petrie in the excellent Dublin Penny Journal (1832), and in a series of three valuable travel books on then remote and little known areas of Ireland. Theese books "written in a kindly and cheerful s pirit, with a keen appreciation of the picturesque...depict a condition of things now almost pased away" {Webb's 'Dictionary of Irish Biography', 1878. In this, the first and most scarce of his books which was first published in 1827, the first 185 pages deal with Donegal, and the remainder with west Cork and Kerry. His deep antipathy to Catholicism results in some interesting descriptions of superstitious peasant practices. The Lough Derg pilgrimage is described in great detail with historical references.
Price: $200.00