Richard Dowling

Life
1846-1898; b. Clonmel, b. Clonmel; worked on The Nation, ed. Zozimus, and wrote novels such as The Mystery of Killard (1878); publishe twenty-eight titles, many of them published by Ward & Downey. CAB PI IF DIL DIB MKA OCIL

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Works
The Mystery of Killard [3 vols.] (London 1879/London: Tinsley 1884); The Sport of Fate [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1880); Under St. Paul’s (London: Tinsley 1880); The Weird Sisters [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1880); The Duke’s Sweetheart [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1881); The Husband’s Secret [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1881); A Sapphire Ring, and Other Stories [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 183); Sweet Inisfail [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1882); The Last Call [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1884); On the Embankment [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1884); The Hidden Flame [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1885); Fatal Bonds [3 vols.] (London: Ward & Downey 1886); The Skeleton Key [3 vols.] (London: Ward & Downey 1886); Tempest-Driven [3 vols.] (London: Tinsley 1886); With the Unhanged (London: Swan Sonnenschein 1887); Miracle Gold [3 vols.] (London: Ward & Downey 1888); Ignorant Essays (NY: Appleton 1888); Indolent Essays (London: Ward & Downey 1889); An Isle of Surrey [3 vols.] (London: Ward & Downey 1889); The Crimson Chair, and Other Stories (London: Ward & Downey 1891); Catmur’s Caves, or The Quality of Mercy (London: A. C. Black 1892); While London Sleeps (London: Ward & Downey 1895); Old Corcoran’s Money (London: Chatto & Windus 1897); A Baffling Quest [3 vols.] (London: Ward & Downey [n.d.]); Below Bridge (London: Ward & Downey [n.d.]); “Letters to a Young Writer”, in Cornhill Magazine, NS 15 (1903), pp.80-86; Zozimus Papers (NY: Kenedy 1909) [here Kennedy], as Marcus Fell; London Town, Sketches of London Life and Character (London: Tinsley 1880), as Emmanuel Kirk; On Babies and Ladders, Essays on Things in General (London: Hotten [1873]; School Board Essays (London: Ward & Downey 1888). [DIL]

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Commentary
W. P. Ryan, The Irish Literary Revival (1894), Richard Dowling had áwritten a story of Western Ireland whose power had suggestions not unworthy of Hugo [8]. ‘[M]ystery, weirdness and morbidness he has made attractive half an hundred times.’ Further, ‘has written no Irish novel since The Mystery of Killard [sic]’ [91-92].

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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); well-known novelist, b. Clonmel, 1846; contrib. Nation and ed. Zozimus, Yorick and Ireland’s Eye; ‘one good novel’, The Mystery of Killard, and used pseud. Emmanuel Kink. d. London.

Charles A. Read, ed., A Cabinet of Irish Literature, 3 vols., 1876-78), gives extract from Killiard [sic], concerning a deaf-mute Clare fisherman who comes to hate his son who shows signs of receiving ‘messages through the ears’.

Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America 1904), gives extract, ‘A Guide to Ignorance’, from Ignorant Essays.

Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978) , cites Madge Dowling, a memoir, in IBL 9 (1917); contrib. chiefly to Tinsley’s Magazine.

Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists The Mystery of Killard (1879, 1884); Sweet Innisfail (1882), Old Corcoran’s Money (1897); Zozimus Papers, stories ed. (NY 1909).

British Library Catalogue holds twenty titles, incl. Mystery of Killard, not Killiard.

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