Closure of EPB for Stock Management, 23rd July – 6th August
It’s that time of year again … The Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections will be closed for 2 weeks for stock management from Monday 23rd July – Monday 6th August 2012 inclusive. We won’t be able to hold any books for readers over this period.
Hotel Mountjoy
Built in 1850 as a holding prison for convicts awaiting transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, Mountjoy Prison remains Ireland’s most populous prison. Known to Dubliners simply as ‘The Joy’, it has often been the focal point of political and social outrage.The Samuels Collection is rich in controversial literature relating to the prison, mainly in the form of leaflets, ballads and street literature.
Ever a matter of contention, the treatment of prisoners during the Irish Civil War (1922-1923) was the subject of great invective and outcry. While some were adamant that prisoners’ lives were far more comfortable than those of the poor wretches outside, others maintained that life in ‘The Joy’ was no joy at all. The term ‘Hotel Mountjoy’ was employed by both – with either scornful irony or righteous indignation – as propaganda and counter-propaganda abounded.
Below is a representative sample, from our Samuels Collection, of the war of words that raged alongside the Civil War itself. Click on thumbnails below to scroll through enlarged versions:
Other TCD holdings relating to the prison include Mountjoy: the story of a prison by Tim Carey (2000) and Memories of Mountjoy by Sean Kilroy (1917), which memorably begins ‘I am quite satisfied now that it is possible to be miserable in jail …’.
Dicks’ Standard Plays
Among the collections in EPB are a lengthy run of plays in the series ‘Dicks’ standard plays’. John Thomas Dicks, born in 1818, advanced his publishing career enormously with the success of ‘Reynolds’s Miscellany’ in 1848. By 1868 the author G.W.M Reynolds was referred to in ‘The Bookseller’ as ‘the most popular writer in England’. Such popularity could only have been beneficial for his publisher too.
By the mid-1860s Dicks’ cheap reprints of Shakespeare led to another expansion of the flourishing business. Around the same time he began publishing ‘Dicks’ standard plays’. Over 1,000 titles were published over a twenty year period –averaging more than one a week! The library copy of ‘List of Dicks’ standard plays and free acting drama’ (London: ca. 1884) identifies Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ as being the first play in the series. Irish interest was heavily represented early on with R.B. Sheridan’s ‘School for Scandal’ (#2), ‘Pizarro’ (#15), ‘The Rivals’ (#18); Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops to Conquer’ (#4) and Charles Macklin’s ‘The Man of the World’ (#16).
Drama scholars today are thankful to John Thomas Dicks as in many cases his publications are the only source that remains of some of the lesser known works.The publishing format included an illustrated paper cover, often pink in colour, with a repeat of the illustration on the title page. The verso of the title page shows costume and stage direction. The printing was done in two columns per page.
Dicks died in France in 1881. However, John Dicks Press Limited continued to publish up until 1963.
Holdings of the series in the Department are chiefly located at 149.u.166-182. See our online listing for more details.
Shakespeare Exhibition now on display
A small exhibition of printed editions of works by Shakespeare is now on display in two exhibition cases at the far end of the Long Room. This mini-exhibition has been organised to coincide with the Dublin Shakespeare Festival which takes place in the Front Square of Trinity College from 6th to 16th June. The exhibition includes a copy of the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s Works, printed in 1623 and commonly known as the First Folio, as well as a copy of the second edition of 1632. Also on display is a very fine illustrated edition of the dramatist’s works published in London in 1802 and separately printed Dublin editions of ‘Hamlet’, ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and ‘The Tempest’, dating from the second half of the 18th century.