H. Halliday Sparling

Life
1860-1924 [Henry Sparling; Henry Halliday Sparling]; editor of Irish Minstrelsy, being a Selection of Irish Songs, Lyrics and Ballads (Walter Scorr 1887; enl. edn. 1888) in the Canterbury Poets series; incls. Mangan’s “Kathleen-ny-Houlihan”; m. May Morris, dg. of William Morris, June 1886, with whom Elizabeth Yeats worked, and who had an affair with G. B. Shaw; Sparling was Sec. of the [Fabian] Socialist Soc.; recipient of letters from Yeats in 1887, &c.; there is a box of photos in the National Portrait Gallery [NPG].

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Works
Irish anthology
  • Irish Minstrelsy: Being a Selection of Irish Songs, Lyrics, and Ballads, original and translated, with notes and introduction by H. H. Sparling [The Canterbury Poets, ed. W. Sharp] (London: Walter Scott [24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row] 1887), xvii, 368pp., 15cm.; Do. [2nd rev. edn.] (London & NY: Walter Scott 18--), xviii, 372pp.; Do. [enl. edn.] (London: Walter Scott 1888), xxvii, 516pp., 8o. [18cm]; Do. [another edn.] (NY: White & Allen [n.d.; 1888]), xxvii, 516pp. [see details].
Other works
  • Volsunga Saga: The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs, edited, with introduction and notes, by H. Halliday Sparling; translated from the Icelandic by Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris [Camelot Ser.] (London: Walter Scott 1888), liii, 276pp.
  • The life, Adventures and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, by Daniel Defoe ; edited with introd. and notes by H. Halliday Sparling [Camelot Ser.; The Scott Library, 25 (London: W. Scott), xvii, 324 pages; Bibl. xxi-xxvii.
  • The Kelmscott Press and William Morris master-craftsman, by H. Halliday Sparling (London: Macmillan and Co 1924), ix, 176pp., [see details]

Bibliographical details
The Kelmscott Press and William Morris Master-craftsman, by H. Halliday Sparling (London: Macmillan and Co 1924), ix, 176pp., ill. [16pp.; pls. & facs., unnum.], incls. "An annotated list of all the books printed and the Kelmscott Press in th order in which they were issued." (being pp.148-174). CONTENTS: The idea takes form; Printing in 1888; Morris in 1888; Apprenticeship; Preparation; The master-printer; Books printed; Achievement; Epilogue; Appendix: A note on his aims in founding the Kelmscott press, by William Morris; A short description of the Kelmscott press, by S.C. Cockerell; An annotated list of the books printed at the press, by S.C. Cockerell; var. lists, leaflets and announcements printed at the Kelmscott press.

Irish Minstrelsy: Being a Selection of Irish Songs, Lyrics, and Ballads, original and translated, with notes and introduction by H. H. Sparling [enl. edn.] (London: Walter Scott 1888), xxvii, 516pp., 8o.; [first issued in 1887, 368pp.; see contents in Bibliography > Anthologies - as attached.]

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Commentary
Dominic Daly, The Young Douglas Hyde (1974), cites Douglas Hyde’s disparagement of Irish Minstrelsy (1887; enl. 1888), compiled by Herbert Halliday Sparling in Walter Scott’s ‘Canterbury Poets’ ser.; disparaged by Hyde for its nonsensical use of lines and phrases of Irish, in general a more sober appraisal of the Davisite balladeers and closer to what Daly considers Hyde’s true opinion, especially on translation, ‘The truth is that Gaelic songs mostly depend for their effect upon the alliteration and collocation of words and that this effect is wholly and of necessity lost in any and every attempt to transfer them into another language, so that what in Irish are the most gorgeous and decorative verses imaginable, may become in English poor and bald ...’, Further, when Yeats referred to a poem of Allingham’s in United Irishman, 12 Dec. 1891; he was misprinted as meaning ‘sparkling Irish minstrelsy’ [n.16; p.214]. Francis Thompson reviewed Sparling for the Dublin Review, vol. XXI, 1889, ‘we look in vain for Irish singers to companion Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats ... a fact so patent would seem to argue for a racial defect ... the present volume bearing out such a conclusion.’ [n., 214-15].

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References
Brian McKenna, Irish Literature (1978), lists Sparling under “Anthologies”, poetry.

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Notes
W. B. Yeats prob. met Sparling at the home of William Morris, acc. A. N. Jeffares (New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats, 1984, p.322), who ascribes the source of his phrase ‘bomb-balls’ to a poem on ‘The Boyne Water’, included therein; but see note under Robert Young.

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