Philip Luckombe

Life
1703-1803, b. Exeter [bapt. 1703]; English miscellaneous writer and conchologist, a printer by training; ed. dictionaries and encyclopaedias, and wrote on printing (Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing, 2 pts., 1771); issued A Tour through Ireland, wherein the state of that kingdom is considered (Dublin 1780), and concentrating on commercial prospects over other considerations - hence, of the round tower at Clondalkin, ‘my description of this one ... will, with little variation, serve for all of them’; published anonymously and largely gleaned from similar works by Bush, Twiss and Campbell; also issued The Beauties of England [ ...] arranged according to respective counties (1788) and The Traveller’s Companion, or a New Itinerary of England and Wales (1789), &c. ODNB

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Works
On Ireland
  • A Tour through Ireland; wherein the present state of that Kingdom is considered: and the most noted cities, towns, seats, buildings, loughs, &c. described. Interspersed with observations (London: printed for T. Lowndes 1780, 1783), xxiv, 373, [23]pp., pl., map, 12°.
  • Do. [another edn.] (Dublin 1780), 362pp., 12°.
  • Do. [another edn. as] A Tour through Ireland in several entertaining letters: wherein the present state of that kingdom is consider’d ... interspersed with observations on the manners, customs, antiquities, curiosities, and natural history of that country by two English gentlemen (London: Printed for J. Roberts [1784])*, 246pp., 8°.
  • The Compleat Irish Traveller; containing a general description of the most noted cities, towns, seats, buildings, loughs &c. in the kingdom of Ireland, 2 vols. (London: printed for the proprietors and sold by the booksellers 1788), ill [22 pls., maps], 8°.
 
*Note: COPAC gives 1748 prob. in error for 1784.
Other works (sel.)
  • A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing (London: W. Adlard & J. Browne 1770, 1771), 6, 502, [4]pp., ill., front., 21 cm.,
  • Do. [as The History and Art of Printing] (London: printed by W. Adlard and J. Browne for J. Johnson 1771), 6, 502, [4]pp., ill., front., 21 cm..
  • [prob. ed.,] The Tablet of Memory: shewing every memorable event in history, from the earliest period to the year 1774, classed under distinct heads, with their dates: comprehending an epitome of English history, with an exact chronology of painters and eminent men. To which are added, several valuable lists [...] third edition, with considerable additions (London: printed for J. Bew 1774; & edns.), [4], 188pp.
  • England’s Gazetteer, or, An accurate description of all the cities, towns, and villages, in the kingdom: shewing their situations, manufactures, trades, markets, fairs ... and their distances from London, &c.: with a descriptive account of every county, their boundaries, extent, natural produce, &c. ... pointing out the camps, castles, and other remains of Roman, Danish, and Saxon, antiquity [...] in three volumes, embellished with a map of England and Wales, 3 vols. in 1 (London: G.G.J. & J. Robinson & R. Baldwin, 1790).

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Criticism
Susan M. Kroeg, ‘Philip Luckombe’s A Tour through Ireland (1780) and the Problem of Plagiarism’, in Eighteenth-Century Ireland / Iris an dá chultúr, 19, (2004), pp.126-37 [available at JSTOR online; accessed 19.10.2010; see extract.]

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Commentary
Joseph Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior To The Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub. Co. 1986), writes of the plagiaristic Tour through Ireland of 1780, collected by Philip Luckombe from the descriptions of Bush, Twiss, and Campbell. (p.79.) Also cited in La Tourette Stockwell, Irish Theatres (1938), and in John McVeagh, ed., Irish Travel Writing: A Bibliography (Dublin: Wolfhound Press 1996), 159pp.

Susan M. Kroeg, ‘Philip Luckombe’s A Tour through Ireland (1780) and the Problem of Plagiarism’, in Eighteenth-Century Ireland / Iris an dá chultúr, 19, (2004), pp.126-37: ‘Luckombe’s [...] Tour [...] was composed, as we shall see, almost entirely of passages lifted verbatim from at least gour fairly well-known works: A Tour through Ireland. In Several Entertaining Letters ... by Two English Gentlemen (1746; attributed to W. R. Chetwood); John Bush’s Hibernia Curiosa (1769), Richard Twiss’ A Tour in Ireland in 1775 (1776) and Thomas Campbell’s A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland (1777). Whether Luckombe actually travelled in Ireland at all is unknown. Even in an era of intense suspicion, however, he does not appear to be have been sued for plagiarism or attacked in printe by these or subsequent travel writers.’ (p.126.) See also summary: ‘This essays explores why Luckombe’s choice of Ireland, combined with certain generic conventions and readerly expectations of travel writing, allowed him to plagiarise without detection.’ [Available at JSTOR online; accessed 19.10.2010.] Note also first ftn. ref.: C. J. Woods, ‘Review Article: Irish Travel Writing as Source Material’, in Irish Historical Studies, 28 (1992), p.173.)

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References
Belfast Linenhall Library holds Tour Through Ireland (1780). RDS: Hibernia Curiosa (1769), 8°, is listed in the catalogue of the Royal Dublin Society Library, in the part compiled by J. F. Jones, the whole being issued by the then librarian Richard Purefoy Colles (Dublin: printed at the University of Dublin Press by M. H. Gill Printer to the Royal Dublin Society 1860) [See Internet Archive online; accessed 19.10.2010].

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