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Poèmes à prix réduit de James Clarence Mangan (1859) (Philip Crampton Smyly/T. O'Conor Sloane)Binding：Hardcover Language：English Special Attributes：1st Edition, Armorial Bookplate of Sir Philip Crampton Smyly, Inscription to T. OConor Sloane Author：James Clarence Mangan Publisher：P. M. Haverty Topic：Poetry Country/Region of Manufacture：United States Year Printed：1859 P. M. Haverty, New York, 1859. Hardcover. Written by James Clarence Mangan. Introduction by John Mitchel. First Edition (SD) in original cloth. This book has some pretty impressive provenance. It has the armorial bookplate of Sir Philip Crampton Smyly on the front inside cover. Smyly was, in his time, one of the most eminent surgeons in Dublin. At various times he was the President of the Royal College of Surgeons, the President of the Laryngological Association of Great Britain, the President of the Irish Medical Association, and the President of the Irish Medical Schools and Graduates Association. And he played a mean violin, actually his talent was described as competent. He was also Surgeon-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria in Ireland until her death, and honorary surgeon to King Edward. He died in Merrion Square, Dublin in 1904. On the title page is a little stamp of his name and that address. One page forward, on the second front end paper there is a penciled inscription, part of which I can read: For T. OConor Sloane from (?), the signature of the inscriber is difficult (take a look at the photo). Fast forward: Today I received the following note (thank you very much): The penciled signature is that of Roland Blenner-Hassett, a scholar in the à prix réduit field of Irish studies many years ago (I met him once at a dinner party in the 1970s when I was teaching an undergraduate seminar at Yale on an Irish subject and he was an elderly man who had compiled a bibliography I had come across a few years earlier as a graduate student at Harvard.So that mystery is solved. Thomas OConor Sloane was an American scientist, inventor, author, editor, educator, and linguist, perhaps best known for writing The Standard Electrical Dictionary and as the editor of Scientific American, from 1886 to 1896 and the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, from 1929 to 1938. He was involved with Amazing Stories from the very beginning, serving as Hugo Gernsbacks managing editor and then editor. Gernsback and Sloane believed that science fiction should promote science and technology and that the stories published in Amazing Stories should be as scientifically plausible as possible, with Sloane in particular emphasizing this. It is thought that Sloane collaborated with Gernsback in originating the term scientifiction which was superseded by science fiction to describe this genre, as suggested in part by the first issue of Amazing Stories. Sloanes best known invention, introduced in 1878, was the Self-Recording Photometer for Gas Power (also called the thermophoto) --the first instrument to mechanically register the illuminating power of natural gas. The year before, in 1877, Sloane had described a new process for determining sulphur in natural gas.
James Clarence Mangans early poetry was often apolitical, but after the famine he began writing patriotic poems. During his life, and immediately after, his legacy was co-opted by Irish Nationalism, primarily thanks to John Mitchels biography, which stressed that Mangan was a rebel with his whole heart and soul against the whole British spirit, building his reputation as Irelands first national poet. WB Yeats considered Mangan one of the best Irish poets, writing To the soul of Clarence Mangan was tied the burning ribbon of Genius. James Joyce used his name in Araby in Dubliners and other of his works.
This very rare first edition not only has fascinating provenance, it has fascinating Irish provenance. It also has four pages of advertisements at its end.
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Poèmes à prix réduit de James Clarence Mangan (1859) (Philip Crampton Smyly/T. O'Conor Sloane)
