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Life
| 1852-1924 [Maurice Francis Egan]; b. 21 May; son of Irish immigrant of 1820s, who settled in Philadelphia and m. into an Irish family of older provenance; ed. La Salle Academy, and later Georgeton Univ.; published poetry in Ave Maria and Sacred Heart Messenger; but also Saturday Evening Post; The Century; wrote That Girl of Mine (1887) in fulfilment of contract made by his lawyer-boss with a publisher; followed with That Lover of Mine; wrote fiction showing Irishmen learning to practice their religion in an American context; professor of English, Notre Dame Univ., Chicago, from 1888, and later at Catholic Univ. of America, Washington D.C.; |
| issued The Disappearance of Jong Longworthy (1890); The Success of Patrick Desmond (1893); The Vocation of Edward Conway (1896), and The Wiles of Sexton Maginnis (1909) - his most popular work, dealing with a Shaughraun-character who never lies ‘except in the interest of truth’; by his own account he wrote 10-15,000 words a week; a friend of Roosevelt, he left academic life for diplomacy and served as US ambassador (minister) to Denmark, 1907-19; he introduced W. B. Yeats to Roosevelt at White House lunch; also issued Recollections of a Happy Life (q.d.); covered novelists and contributed an essay entitled ‘Irish Novels’ to Charles Welsh, [Managing Ed.] of Irish Literature (1904). JMC |
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Works
Justin McCarthy, gen., ed., Irish Literature (Philadelphia: Morris 1904), gives ‘The Orange Lilies’ from The Land of St. Lawrence, and ‘The Shamrock’.
See also his editorial essay, ‘Irish Novels’, in Irish Literature (1904), Vol. VI, pp.vii-xvii - and note that this essay was previously printed as ‘On Irish Novels’ in Catholic University Bulletin [Washington, D.C.], 10, 3 (July 1904), pp.329-41 [see copy in RICORSO Library, “Criticism”, Monographs, via index or direct.]
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Criticism
There is a paper on him by Robert Mahony of Catholic University of America (1990, 1995).
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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912) - gives lengthy entry on Egan reflecting his importance as a leading light in the literary and cultural scene of Irish-America. He does not, however, mention his role as managing editor of the multi-volume anthology of Irish Literature (Washington 1904), under the nominal editorship of Justin McCarthy, MP, with Charles Welch acting as the working editor. The entry in Poets of Ireland reads:
EGAN, MAURICE FRANCIS. — Preludes, Philadelphia, 1880, 8vo; Songs and Sonnets by M. F. E., and Carmina by C. B. Pallen, London, 1885, 8vo; A Garden of Roses, 1886; Songs and Sonnets, and other poems, Chicago, 1892, 16mo; Songs and Sonnets, London, 1895. [130]
Born at Philadelphia, Pa., on May 24, 1802. Educated at La Sall eCollege, Philadelphia, and at Greorgetown College, Washington, at which last he graduated M.A., and in 1889 LL. D. Was for some time Professor of English Literature in University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and held the same position in the Catholic University of Washington, D. C, until his appointment to the American Consulship at Copenhagen. After completing his education in La Salle College and Georgetown College (D.C.), he studied law for a while, but was attracted to literature. He has written for Catholic World (New York) for many years, and there are few leading journals in the States to which he has not contributed, or in which his writings have not been reprinted. His father was a Tipperary man. He has published several works on literature, besides his various volumes of verse and his stories, and is in all the American anthologies. He has written some anonymous novels, such as “That Girl of Mine,” etc. Has been successively editor of M’Gee’s Illustrated Weekly, Catholic Review, and New York Freeman’s Journal (1881 to 1888). “Stories of Duty “and “The Life around Us” are collections of moral tales by him. (Op. cit., p.131.)
See also Dictionary of American Biography and Brian McKenna, Irish literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), p.4
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