Irish Literary Studies

1 primary work

Carleton's Traits and Stories and the Nineteenth Century Anglo-Irish Tradition

by Barbara Hayley

Published 13 June 1983

The twenty-nine stories in William Carleton's Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry each had a different publishing history. Some had appeared in periodicals as different as the Christian Examiner and the Dublin Literary Gazette; every story underwent revision when it first appeared in a book and in subsequent editions. These revisions were not slight. On occasion Carleton transformed the story almost out of recognition: 'The Landlord and Tenant' was doubled into 'Tubber Derg or the Red Well'; he censored 'An Essay on Irish Swearing'; 'Going to Maynooth' was improved by lengthy inter-polations. In this study, Dr. Hayley follows the development of all the stories from their earliest appearances, through all the editions of the First and Second Series of Traits and Stories, up to the definitive 'New Edition' of the collection of 1842-44, with observations on later editions. She comments on all the changes to each story in this important work, which was so popular and influential on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th Century.