1729-1797 [var. 1730]; b. 12 Jan., 12 Arran Quay, Dublin; second son of fifteen children to Richard Burke, a Dublin attorney who appears to have conformed to practice law, and Mary Nagle, of Ballyduff; baptised into Church of Ireland; entered TCD, 1743; he founded with others The Reformer (28 Jan.-21 April 1748); BA, 1748; Middle Temple, London 1749; weak health; travelled west of England and to France; allowance discontinued by father for neglect of studies; A Vindication of Natural Society (1756), and Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful (1756); m. Jane Nugent, dg. of his friend the Catholic physician Christopher Nugent, under Anglican rite, and was for a time dependent on father-in-law for support, 1757; applied unsuccessfully for consulship in Madrid, 1759; edited Annual Register, 1759 [var. 1758 OCIL]; contributing until 1788; priv. sec. to William Gerard Hamilton, 1759-64, accompanied him to Ireland, 1761-62, and again in 1763-64; wrote but left unpublished a ‘Fragments of a Tract on the Popery Laws’ [1763]; Resolutions for Conciliation; Letter to a Peer; resigned a pension obtained for him by Hamilton, remaining as his secretary to the end of 1764; priv. sec. to Marquis of Rockingham [Charles Watson Wentworth, 2 Marquis; 1730-82], July 1765; inherited small Irish estate, 1765, sold in 1790; MP for Wendover, 1765-74; maiden speech, on American question, 27 Jan 1766; visited Ireland, 1766; attacked Chatham-Grattan administration esp. on East Indian Co., 1766 (Chatham being the ennobled Pitt), and American question, 1767; participated in stock-jobbing with his brother, and his kinsman, together with Lord Verney (who secured Wendover for him); [marginally] involved in their financial crash, 1769; bought [Gregories] Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, for £20,000, 1768; effected transfer of Sebright [var. Seabright, infra] Irish MSS to Trinity where Dr. Leland was among those who examined them, 1769; attacked Tories, 1769, issuing Thoughts on the Present Discontents, 23 Apr. 1770 [issued as Whig party pamphlet]; secured publicity for proceedings of Parliament, 1771; agent for New York province, 1771; assailed under suspicion of being ‘Junius’, 1772; voted for removal of disabilities on dissenters, and objected to taxation of absentees, 1773; visited Paris, Feb.-Mar. 1773; joined Fox in attacks on Lord North, 1774-75; MP for Bristol, 1774-78 on invitation of citizens, who were afterwards offended by his championship of free trade and Catholic emancipation; spoke in Commons advocating peace with America, 22 Mar. 1775; supported Thomas Townshend when he argued for Catholic Relief in House of Common, 7 April 1777, productive of two relief measures being passed and approved by June 1777; speech against employment of Indians in America War, Feb. 1778; Catholic Committee, Dublin, votes 500 guineas award to Burke, 11 Nov. 1778, which the latter refused and returned when forwarded to him (with suggestion that it be used to educate Catholics barred from Irish schools); suggested measures of Catholic relief to Sir George Savile; helped Admiral Keppel in successful defence against court-martial, 1779; advocated economic reform in public service, and supported Wilberforce Anti-slavery Act, 1780; Speech at the Guildhall in Bristol (1780), addressing electors of on Ireland (‘stupidity has lost America; stupidity will lose us Ireland’); issued Thoughts on the Approaching Executions in the wake of the Gordon Riots, London (June 1780), advocating execution of the six sentenced men in six different places; stood in danger of Protestant backlash; elected MP for Malton, Yorkshire, 1781-84 through Rockingham’s influence; his attacks on North forced the PM’s resignation, 1781-2; Privy Councillor and Paymaster of the forces on Whigs coming to office, March-July 1782 [reduced his own salary]; urged economic reform and the conferring of self-government (commercial and civil) on Ireland, 1782; moderately supported legislative independence for Ireland with its promise of a ‘natural, cheerful alliance’ of the countries; Letter from a Distinguished Commoner to a Peer of Ireland on the Penal Laws (1782; pub. 1783), addressed to Thomas Browne, Lord Kenmare, on Gardiner Catholic Relief Act; accepted post as paymaster of forces under coalition government of Lord North and Charles Fox under Duke of Portland, 1783; member of committee investigating East India Co., writing the 9th Report on the system of Warren Hastings in Bengal, and the 11th Report on the system of presents; drafted the Government East India Bill, 1783; Speech on Fox’s India Bill, 1 Dec. 1783, pub. 22 Jan. 1784, speaking of violent oppressions committed by Wazir’s revenue collectors; rector of Glasgow University, 1784;-85; continued attacks on Hastings, and travelled to Scotland, 1785; joined Phillip Francis in urging the impeachment of Warren Hastings, on charges of embezzlement, fraud, abuse of power, and cruelty; impeachment of Hastings, 10 May 1787; gave a 4-day speech at the opening session, Westminster Hall, Feb. 1788; excluded from Fox’s cabinet, 1788; joined Fox in defending rights of Regent, 1788; supported Wilberforce against slavery, 1788-89; spoke in parliament against French democracy, Feb. 1790; Reflections on the French Revolution pub. 1 Nov. 1790, written in answer to a sermon by a leading dissenter and anti-monarchist Dr. Richard Price at Old Jewry, London (4 Nov., 1789), and composed in form of letter to Charles-Jean-François Dupont who had sought Burke’s opinion the Flight to Varennes (5-6 Oct. 1790) which had just transpired; accuses Rousseau’s followers of ‘an unjustifiable poetic licence’ in translating into the practical sphere ‘the metaphysically true […] but morally and politically false’ (p.153-54), thus perverting human feeling and engaging in a ‘war with heaven itself’; estranged from Fox and Sheridan due to their initial support for the French Jacobins whom he described as ‘turbulent, discontented men [who] generally despised their own order’; prevailed new Parliament to continue impeachment of Hastings, 1790; LLD TCD [Dublin Univ.], 1791; voted against reform of disabilities against Unitarians and against parliamentary reform; pleaded for war with France and advised support of Pitt and the Tories, quarrelling openly with ministerial party, 1792; his letters to Sir Hercules Langrishe of Jan. 1792 (London; publ. in Dublin, March 1792) reveal the extent of his concern for Irish Catholics; in the famous ‘dagger speech’ of 21 Dec. 1792 he objected to sequestration of aliens in England; continued his quarrel with Fox and Sheridan, 1794; nine-days’ speech in reply to Hasting’s defence, 1794; retired from parliament, July, 1794; pensioned by coalition ministry of Portland Whigs and Pitt, 1794; Fitzwilliam offers Burke’s vacated seat of Malton to his son Richard; death of Richard from consumption, 2 Aug.; arrival of Lord Fitzwilliam, friend of Burke and Grattan, in Dublin as Viceroy, with imminent promise of Catholic Emancipation, 4 Jan. 1795; Fitzwilliam recalled from Ireland, end of Feb., at behest of Dublin ‘junto’ [Burke’s usage; commonly ‘junta’] led by Fitzgibbon and Beresford; present at acquittal of Hastings, 1795; encouraged foundation of Maynooth College, est. 1795, during viceroyalty of Camden; established school for sons of French emigrés families, Penn, Buckinghamshire, 1796; Letters on a Regicide Peace, 26 Oct. 1796 [publication of two; and two others in 1797]; Collected Works (1792-1827), commenced in Burke’s lifetime by French Laurence and Walker King (who later acted as his literary executors), voted for Wilberforce’s anti-slavery laws; travelled to Bath on medical advice, Mar. 1797, occupying No. 11, N. Parade (where Goldsmith also stayed); d. 9 July and was reported in Watty Cox’s Asylum to have received the last rites from ‘the president of Maynooth’ (Rev. Thomas Hussey); and lives by J. Prior (1824), J. Morley (1897); and [Philip] Magnus (1939), and others; Lord Inchiquin [O’Brien] wrote: ‘he was admired by everybody but had no friends.’ RR DNB DIB DIW DIL OCEL FDA RAF JMC ODQ OCIL
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Works
Original Editions, A Vindication of Natural Society, or A View of the Miseries and Evils arising to Mankind from Every Species of Artificial Society, in a Letter to Lord ***** by a late Noble Writer (1756; 2nd edn. 1765); Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756, enl. edn. Dodsley 1757); An Account of the European Settlements in America (1757); Tracts relative to the Laws Against Popery in Ireland [1763]; Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents (1770); Speech on American Taxation (1774); History of America [2 vols.] (Dublin: Wilson 1777); Speech in Support of Resolutions for Conciliation with the American Colonies (22 March 1775, 1778); Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790); Appeal from the New Whigs to the Old Whigs (London 3 Aug. 1791) [omitted from Vol. VIII of The Writings and Speeches]; Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings [with introduction] (1792); Heads for Consideration on the Present State of Affairs (Dec. 1792); Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (Paris, 27 Apr. 1791; London, 21 May 1791); A Letter to Sir H. Langrishe Bart., M.P., on the subject of the Roman Catholics of Ireland and the propriety of admitting them to the elective franchise, consistently with the principles of the constitution as established at the revolution ([London], 3. Jan. 1972; Dublin, Feb. 1792); Second Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe (1795); Letter from the Right Hon. Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord on attacks made upon him and his pension, in the House of Lords by the Duke of Bedford [Baron Russell] and the Earl of Lauderdale in the present sessions of Parliament. (1795), 80pp.
Dublin Editions, Thoughts, &c. [Dublin Edn.] (G. Faulkner 1770), 8o; A Speech of Edmund Burke ... Guildhall Bristol (1780), 68pp. [Todd 39b; Hyland Jan. 1995]; Articles of charge of high crimes and misdemeanours, against Warren Hastings, Esq., late Gov. Gen. of Bengal, presented to the House of Commons, on the 4th [26th & 27th] day[s] of April (and the 5th of May), 1786, by Rt. Hon Edmund Burke [3 vols. in 1 vol.] (London: J. Stockdale 1786); Sir Brooke Boothb[y], Bart., Observations on the Appeal from the New to the old Whigs, and on Mr. Paine’s Rights of Man, in 2 pts. (London: printed for J. Stockdale 1792); Substance of the Speech ... in the House of Commons, 23rd May, 1794 (1794), 26pp+6pp., adverts [Todd 64b.; Hyland Jan 1996]; also A letter to Henry Duncombe, Esq., Mbr. for the County of York, on the Subject of the very extraordinary pamphlet, lately addressed by Mr Burke, to a Noble Lord, by William Miles (London: printed for J. Debrett 1796).
Query, A Letter to the Citizens of Dublin (replying to the Cork Surgeon’s Anecdote) by [?]Edmund Burke [printed by William Johnson] (3rd edn. Dublin 1749) [BML].
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Collected Editions, Speeches and Writings of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, 16 vols. (London: Rivington 1803-27); French Laurence & Walker King, eds., Speeches and Writings of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke [2nd Edn., enl.], 16 vols. (London: Rivington 1827), with index [incls. Life by James Prior [2 vols.], bound with Epistolary Correspondence of the Rt. Hon Edmund Burke and Dr. French Laurence; A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (London: Tegg, Todd 1756, enl. edn. 1757); another edn., (Chiswick: C & C. Whittingham 1825); small 8o [copy in Marsh’s Library from collection of Bishop H. V. White]; A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, with an intro. essay concerning taste ... by the Right Hon. Edmund Burke (London: Thomas McLean 1823), 262pp.; Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke with memoir and historical introductions, by James Burke (Dublin: Duffy [1854]) [infra]; The Works of the Right Hon Edmund Burke, with a biographical and critical introduction by Henry Rogers, [2 vols.; British Classics ser.] (London: Bohn 1848-50), and Do., 6 vols. (London: Bohn 1855-56), and Do., 8 vols. (London: Bohn 1854-89); and Do., 8 vols. [Bohn Edn.] (London: G. Bell & Sons 1899-1917) [of which Vol. 3. is ‘Political Miscellanies’]; The Works of Edmund Burke, 12 vols. [rev. edn.] (Boston: Little, Brown 1865-67); Four Letters on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France (2nd edn. 1878); Matthew Arnold, ed., Letters, Speeches and Tracts on Irish Affairs (London: Macmillan 1881; Dublin 1886), and Do., with new introduction by Conor Cruise O’Brien (London: Cresset {Press 1988), xxxxi, 439pp.; Henry Morley, ed. & intro., Two Speeches on Conciliation with America and Two Letters on Irish Questions (London: Routledge 1886); Complete Works, 12 vols. (London 1887) [also modern German rep. of same from Olms, Hildesheim]; Selections from the Speeches and Writings (London: Routledge 1893), 416pp.; William Willis & F. W. Raffe[r]ty, Works of the Rt. Hon Edmund Burke [World’s Classics] (OUP 1906-07); Hugh Law, ed., Speeches and Letters on American Affairs [Everyman] (London: J. M. Dent 1908); Reflections on the French Revolution and Other Essays [Everyman No.460], intro. A. J. Grieve, (London: J. M. Dent [1910]), 361pp., incl. ‘Notes on the French Revolution’, pp.331-61; Speech on Conciliation with America, ed. and intro. with notes, F. G. Selby [Pitt Press Series] (Cambridge UP 1912), 104pp.; A. M. D. Hughes, ed. Selections from Edmund Burke, with Essays by Hazlitt, Arnold and Others (Oxford, 1930); Sir Philip Magnus, ed., Selected Prose of Edmund Burke [1st ed.] (1948); Thomas H. D. Mahoney, ed., Reflections on the Revolution in France (New York, 1955); Thomas W. Copeland, gen. ed., Correspondence Of Edmund Burke, with Barbara Lowe O. J. Marshall, John A. Woods, 10 vols. (Cambridge UP; Chicago UP 1958-78) [9 vols.+index].
P. J. Langford, gen. ed., The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, 9 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1981-97); incl. T.O. McLoughlin & James T. Boulton, ed., The Early Writings; textual editor for the writings William B. Todd [ Vol. 1] (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997), xv, 589pp.
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Separate modern editions, J. L. Boulton, ed., An Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (Chicago: Notre Dame UP 1958); H. F. V. Somerset, A Notebook of Edmund Burke and William Burke (Cambridge UP 1957), 120pp.; J. T. Boulton, ed., Philosophical Enquiry ... Sublime &c. [orig. 1757] (London Routledge & Kegan Paul 1958); Reflections on the Revolution in France and on proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event, ed. with intro. Conor Cruise O’Brien, (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1968), 400pp.; Iain Hamspher-Monk, ed., Political Philosophy of Edmund Burke (London: Longman 1987), xxi, 284pp.; Adam Phillips, ed. and intro., Philosophical Enquiry [... &c.] [World’s Classics] (OUP 1990), xxvii, 173pp.; Ian Harris, ed., Edmund Burke, Pre-Revolutionary Writings [Cambridge Texts in history of Pol. Thought] (Cambridge UP 1993); Reflections on the French Revolution, ed., L. G. Mitchell [World’s Classics] (OUP 1993), xxiv, 326pp.; Tom Furniss, Burke’s Aesthetic Ideology (Cambridge UP 1994).
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Bibliographical details
William B. Todd, and William Burton, A Bibliography of Edmund Burke (London: Hart Davies 1964); Do., rep. [St Paul’s Bibl.] (London: Godalming 1982), 316pp.
Thomas W. Copeland, gen. ed., Correspondence Of Edmund Burke, compiled by Barbara Lowe O. J. Marshall, John A. Woods, 10 vols. [9 vols. + Index] (Cambridge UP; Illinois UP 1958-78), Vol. 1, ed. Copeland (1958); Vol. 2, ed. Lucy Sutherland (1960); Vol. 3, ed. George G. Gutteridge (1961); Vol. 4, ed. John A. Woods (1963), Vol. 5, ed. Holden Furber assisted by P. J. Marshall (1965), Vol. 6, ed. Alfred Cobban and Robert A Smith (1967), Vol. 7, ed. P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (1968), Vol. 8, ed. R. B. McDowell (1969), xvv+475pp.; Vol. 9, ed. R. B. McDowell and John A. Woods (1970), 487pp.; Vol. 10, Index (1978), 507pp.
P. J. Langford, gen. ed., The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, 9 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1981-97), incls. Vol. 1: T. O. McLoughlin [Harare] & J. T. Boulton [Birmingham], eds., “The Early Writings” (1997), 590pp. Vol. 2: “Party, Parliament, and the American Crisis 1766-74” (1981), xvii, 508pp.; Vol. 5: Pt. 1, “India, The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment”, ed. P. J. Marshall; Pt. 2, “India, Madras and Bengal 1774-85”, ed. Thomas Copeland (1981), xv, 667pp. Vol. 6: “India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment, 1786-88”, ed. Marshall (OUP 1991). Vol. 8: L. G. Mitchell, ed., “The French Revolution, 1790-94” (1989). Vol. 9: R. B. McDowell, ed., Pt. I, The Revolutionary War, Sept. 1794-April 1797; Pt. II, Ireland (1991), xvii, 723pp.
Paul Langford, gen. ed., The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, Vol. IX, I, The Revolutionary War, 1794-97; II, Ireland, ed. R. B. McDowell, textual ed. for the writings, William B. Todd (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1991) [ded. to Thomas W. Copeland, 1907-79]; CONTENTS, include [inter al.] Letter to William Elliot; Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, 1795 [sic]; Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, 1795; Letter to a Noble Lord, 1796; First letter [sic] on a Regicide Peace, 1796; Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, 1796; Third Letter on a Regicide Peace, 1797; On Ireland, ‘Address and Petition to the Irish Catholics’, 1764; Tracts relating to the Popery Laws, 1765; Speech on Prorogation of Irish Parliament, 3 May 1770; Speeches on Irish Banking, Trade, Civil Establishment, etc.; Letter to Thomas Burgh, 1 Jan. 1780; Letter to Lord Kenmare, 21 Feb. 1 1782; Speech on Irish Crisis, 8 April 1782; Speech on Affairs of Ireland, May 1782; another, Dec. 1782; Speech on Irish commercial Propositions, 21 Feb.; 19 May, 1785; Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, 1792; Letter to Williams smith, 29 Jan. 1795; 2nd Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, 26 May 1795, Letter to Unknown, 1797; also speeches on Mutiny Bill, &c.
Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Great Melody, lists works: Correspondence of Edmund Burke, gen. ed., Thomas Copeland, Vol. 1 ed. Copeland (1958); Vol. 2, ed Lucy Sutherland (1960); Vol. 3, ed. George G. Gutteridge (1961); Vol. 4, ed. John A. Woods (1963), Vol. 5, ed. Holden Furber assisted by P. J. Marshall (1965), Vol. 6, ed. Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (1967), Vol. 7, ed. P. J. Marshall and John A Woods (1968), Vol. 8, ed. R. B. McDowell (1969), Vol. 9, ed. R. B. McDowell and John A Woods (1970), Vol. X, Index (1978). O’Brien lists WORKS, The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke [dedicated to Thomas Copeland], gen. ed., Paul Langford; vol. 2, Party, Parliament, and the American Crisis, 1766-1774’, ed. Paul Langford (1981); vol. 5, India, 1 The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment, ed. P. J. Marshall; 2, India, Madras and Bengal 1774-1785, ed. Thomas Copeland (1981); vol. 6, The launching of the Hastings Impeachment 1786-1788, ed. P. J. Marshall; Vol. 8, the French Revolution 1790-94, ed. L. G. Mitchell [‘a regrettable aberration which O’Brien especially castigates as a Namierite in The Great Melody]; vol. 9, 1, The Revolutionary War; 2, Ireland, both ed. R. B. McDowell. Tracts, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (Paris, 27 April 1791; London, 21 May 1791); Appeal from the New Whigs to the Old Whigs (London 3 Aug. 1791); 1792, Heads for Consideration on the Present State of Affairs (Dec. 1792) [440-46; see O’Brien’s remarks on same, infra]. Note, Tracts Relative to the Popery Laws commonly dated 1763 but c.1769 in O’Brien.
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Microfilm editions, The Papers of Edmund Burke, 1729-97 from the Sheffield Archives & Northamptonshire Record Office [on 25 reels of 35mm silver-halide positive microfilm; £1,750], being Part I of ‘Politics in the Age of Revolution’. [Adam Matthew Publ., Oxford St., Marlborough, Wiltshire, England, SN8 1AP.]; Declan Budd & Ross Hinds, eds., The Hist and Edmund Burke’s Club: An antholog of the College Historical Society, the Student Debating Society of Trinity College, from tis originas in Edmund Burke’s Club 1747-1997 (Budd & Hinds 1997).
[James Burke, ed.,] The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with memoir and historical introductions by James Burke Esq., A.B., Barrister-at-Law, author of “Memoir of Thomas Moore” (Dublin: James Duffy 1854), 456pp., 8o.; Do., Another edn. ([7 Wellington Quay; and 22, Paternoster Row, London, 1862), 456pp. [17.7 cm.]; and Do. [another edn.] (Dublin & London London 1867), 456pp. 19 cm. See also Speeches ... to which is added his letter on the Union with a commentary on his career and character (Duffy [c.1853]), 468p. [BLib]. Note that Burke subscribes his address to the Preface as “5, Eccles St., Dublin, Dec. 1853” and acknowledges the help of works by Bissett, Prior and Croly, et al.
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| See also Irish Book Lover, Vols. 4, 6. | [ top ] |
Burke’s Aesthetics: Neal Wood, ‘The Aesthetic Dimension of Burke’s Political Thought’, in The Journal of British Studies, 4, 1 (1964); Samuel Monk, The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories (Ann Arbor: Michigan UP 1935) and John Barrell, An Equal, Wide Survey (London: Hutchinson 1983).
Fintan Cullen, ed., Sources in Irish Art: A Reader (Cork UP 2000), contains Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry; Samuel Madden; Lady Morgan’s Life of Salvator Rosa; David Wilke’s letter from Ireland; Thomas Davis; George Petrie; W. B. Yeats; Elizabeth Thompson, Mainie Jellet, and others.
Incidental Commentary: Edith Mary Johnston, Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (Dublin, 1974); Gary Kelly, The English Jacobin Novel (Oxford, 1976); Albert Souboul, A Short History of the French Revolution, 1789-1799 (California, 1977); David Dickson, New Foundations, Ireland, 1660-1800 (Dublin, 1987); Ferenc Feher, The Frozen Revolution, An Essay on Jacobinism (Cambridge, 1987); François Furet and Mona Ozouf, ed., A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (London, 1989); H. T. Mason and W. Doyle, The Impact of the French Revolution on European Consciousness (London, 1989).
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Bibliographical Details
Thomas H. D. Mahoney, Edmund Burke and Ireland (Harvard UP 1960), 413pp., Bibliography: SECT. I, Manuscript sources incl. Burke MSS, Sheffield; Burke MSS, Lamport Hall; Fitzwilliam MSS, Sheffield Central Library; Charles O’Hara MSS, Annaghmore, Co. Sligo [publ. by Ross J. S. Hoffman, 1956; copies made my Canon Robert H. Murray in Bodleian Library]; a photostatic ]; Portland MSS, Nottingham; Rockingham MSS, Sheffield; the Correspondence of 7,000 pieces bibliographises by Thomas Copeland and Milton S. Smith, 1955. SECT II, Correspondence, letters in R. B. Adam Library Relating to Dr Johnson and his Era, ed. Robert Borthwick Adam; Autobiography of Arthur Young; Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Between the Year 1744 and the Period of his Decease, in 1797, ed Charles William, Earl Fitzwilliam [5th Earl], and Lieut.-Gen. Sir Richard Bourke, 4 vols. (London . 1844); Correspondence of Edmund Burke & William Windham, ed. J. P. Gilson (Cambridge UP 1910); Henry Grattan [Jr.], Memoirs of the Life and times of the Rt. Hon. Henry Grattan, 5 vols. (London 1849); Historical Manuscripts Commission [Eighth to Fifteenth Reports]; Ross J. S. Hoffman, Edmund Burke, New York Agent, With His letter to the New York Assembly and Intimate Correspondence with Charles O’Hara 1761-76 (Phil. 1956); The Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland, ed. George Hogg, 4 vols. (London 1862); The Leadbeater Papers, A Selection from the Manuscripts and Correspondence of Mary Leadbeater, ed. Mrs. Leadbeater 2nd. ed., 2 vols., (London 1862); A Notebook of Edmund Burke, ed H. V. F. Somerset (Cambridge UP 1957); Original Letters, Principally from Lord Charlemont, Edmund Burke [and] William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, to the Right Hon. Henry Flood (London 1827); Arthur P. I. Samuels, The Early Life, Correspondence and Writings of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, LLD (Cambridge UP 1923); The Speeches of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke in the House of Commons and in Westminster Hall, 4 vols. (London 1816); The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, 12 vols. (Boston 1901) [rep. of 1865-67]. SECT III, ‘Other Published Material’ [among some 60 items are] Sir Jonah Barrington, Personal Sketches [&c.] (1827-32); Liam Barry, Our Legacy from Burke (Cork 1952); Robert Bisset, The Life of Edmund Burke, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (London 1800); Moritz J. Bonn, Die Englische Kolinisation in Irland, Vol. II (Stuttgart 1906); Charles Butler, Historical Memoir of the English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics Since the Reformation, 3rd edn., 4 vols. (London 1822); Alfred Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt against Eighteenth Century (NY 1929); Correspondence of John Beresford, ed. William Beresford, 2 vols. (London 1854); Correspondence of Thomas Percy and Edmund Malone, ed. Arthur Tillotson (Baton Rouge 1944); The Croker Papers, ed. Louis J. Jennings, vol. 1 (London 1884); Edmund Curtis, A History of Ireland, 2nd edn. (London 1936); Extracts from Mr Burke’s Table-Talk at Crewe hall, Written down by Mrs Crewe, Miscellanies of the Philobiblion society, Vol. VII (London 1862-1863); C. Litton Falkiner, Studies in Irish History (London 1902); Froude, The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 3 vols. (NY 1874); Denis Gwynn, John Keogh (Dublin 1930); Francis Hardy, Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of James Caulfield, Earl of Charlemont, 2nd Edn., 2 vols. (London 1812); M. Hayden and G. Moonan, A Short History of the Irish People (Dublin 1921); John Hely Hutchinson, The Commercial Restraints of Ireland (Dublin 1882); Tom Ireland, Ireland Past and Present (NY 1942); Harold J. Laski, Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham (NY 1920); Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 5 vols. (NY 1892); A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 5 vols. (1893); Lectures, Essays, and Letters of Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Napier, Bart (Dublin 1888); John McCunn, The Political Thought of Burke (NY 1913); Thomas MacKnight, History of the Life and Times of Edmund Burke, 3 vols. (London 1858-60); Sir Philip Magnus, Edmund Burke, A Life (London 1939); R. P. MacDermott, The College Historical Society (Dublin 1932); John Morley, Edmund Burke, A Historical Study (London 1867); Burke (London 1888); George O’Brien, An Economic History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (Dub&Lon 1918); J. R. Flanagan, Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland [?2 vols.] (London 1870); Annie Osborne, Rousseau and Burke, A Study of the Idea of Liberty in Eighteenth Century Political Thought (London 1940); Charles W. Parkin, The Moral Basis of Burke’s Political Thought (Cambridge UP 1956); Francis Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland, 2 vols. (London 1803); James Prior, Life of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (London 1803) [‘the most satisfactory edition’]; Ernest Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Christian Statesman (London 1948); Patrick Rogers, The Irish Volunteers and Catholic Emancipation 1778-1793 (London 1934); Sir Samuel Romilly, Memoirs (1840); [Denis Scully], A State of the Penal Laws which Aggrieve the Catholics of Ireland, 2nd edn. (Dublin 1812); Peter J. Stanlis, Edmund Burke and the Natural Law (Ann Arbor 1958); Ralph Straus[s], Robert Dodsley (London 1910); Heinrich Von [T]ybel, ‘Edmund Burke and Ireland’, Kleine historische Schriften, Vol. 1 (Marburg 1869); G. E. Weare, Edmund Burke’s Connection with Bristol (1894); Edmund Burke and His Kinsmen, A Study of the Statesman’s Financial Integrity and Private Relationships (Boulder: Colorado 1939); Woodrow Wilson, ‘The Interpreter of English Liberty’, Mere Literature (Boston 1896); [et al.].
Luke Gibbons, Edmund Burke and Ireland (Cambridge UP 2003), 303pp.: List of illustrations page ix; Preface xi; Introduction: Edmund Burke, Ireland, and the colonial sublime. PART I - THE POLITICS OF PAIN: i] 'This king of terrors': Edmund Burke and the aesthetics of executions 21; 2] Philoctetes' and colonial Ireland: the wounded body as national; narrative 39. PART II - SYMPATHY AND THE SUBLIME: 3] The sympathetic sublime: Edinund Burke, Adam Smith, and the politics of pain 83; 4] Did Edmund Burke cause the Great Famine? Commerce, culture, and colonialism 121. PART III - COLONIALISM AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT: 5] 'Tranquillity tinged with terror': the sublime and agrarian insurgency 147; 6] Burke and colonialism: the Enlightenment and cultural diversity 166. PART IV - PROGRESS AND PRIMITIVISM: 7] 'Subtilized into savages': Burke, progress, and primitivism 183; 8] 'The return of the native': the United Irishmen, culture, and colonialism 208; Conclusion: towards a post-colonial Enlightenment 230; Notes 239; Index 288
Portraits: Oil portrait by Joshua Reynolds, bequeathed to NGI by Miss Emily Drummond, 1930; James Barry’, port. of Burke, TCD [quill in hand]; ‘Ulysses and a companion escaping from the Cave of Polyphemous’ (Crawford Gallery, Cork), with Burke as Ulysses [infra]; unfinished port. of Burke with Lord Rockingham; mezzotint by John Jones, after Zoffany (who also portrayed Warren Hastings and his wife in the manner of Gainsborough); statue of Burke at College Green, Dublin [TCD Front Gate] by J. H. Foley (1868); Burke reading his India Bill to Charles Fox, who later carried it through Parliament, by Thomas Hickey (1741-1824) [National Portrait Collection]; Edmund Burke, by Thomas Worridge, purchased by Dermod O’Brien PRHA from Burke fam. and used as frontis. in Copeland ed., Letters (1958) [for the foregoing see Anne Crookshank, Irish Portraits Exhibition (Ulster Mus. 1965)]. See also ills. in Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Great Melody (1992): Lord Rockingham and Edmund Burke, unfinished portrait by Reynolds (Fitzwilliam, Cambridge); Ills. incl. Mrs Sheridan (Mansell Collection); Richard Burke (Earl Spencer/Nat. Portrait Gallery); Burke as Jesuit (cartoon, BML); Charles Fox and Edmund Burke, ‘The Wrangling Friends’, Cruikshank, BML); James Gillray, ‘The battle of Bow-Street’, July 1788, shows Charles james Fox and R. B. Sheridan complaining to the Chief Magistrate, Sir Sampson Wright about over-zealous use of military, while Burke in spectacles raises his hands (see Edmund Burke: Life in Caricature). Note that Burke was represented as crypto-Catholic wearing a biretta by Gillray and others.
Ulysses Burke: James Barry’s painting “Ulysses and a companion escaping from the Cave of Polyphemous” (Crawford Gall., Cork), places has Burke’s head on Ulysses and Barry’s on his companion’s [see James Barry, Rx].
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The Annual Register, briefly edited by Burke, was subtitled ‘a view of the history, politics, and literature for the year’ and published by Robert Dodsley (London). It was acquired and published by Otridge (1791-1812), a continuation being published by Rivington (1820-24), and finally united. See Lowndes, Bibliographical Manual, Vol. I; also QUB Library Catalogue. Note that Deane Swift’s Essay Upon the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Jonathan Swift [... &c.] (1755) was reviewed by Burke in the Annual Register in 1756.
Tracts Relative to the Laws against Popery (given in Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Derry: Field Day 1991, Vol. 1), known variously as ‘Fragments of a Tract on the Popery Laws’, and prob. written 1761 - acc. Cone; op. cit., supra, p.43 - but dated 1763. See also0 C. C. Cruise O’Brien, in The Great Melody, 1992): ‘The Tracts were neither completed nor any part published in Burke’s lifetime though fragments occupying some 70pp. appear in the Collected Works (1899 edn., VI, p.311), dated 1764.’ (p.40.)
Oliver Goldsmith wrote of Burke in Retaliation: ‘born for the universe, narrowed his mind / And to party gave up what was meant for mankind’; further, ‘Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat / To persuade Tommy Townsend to lend him his vote’ - lines favoured by James Joyce, as recorded by Padraic Colum in his contribution to Ulick O’Connor, ed., The Joyce that We Knew (Cork: Mercier 1967), p.82. Further, ‘Too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, / And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining ... Though equal to all things, for profit unfit, / Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.’)
Mary Shelley [Mary Wollestonecraft] criticised Philosophical Enquiry (1756) in her Vindication of the Rights of Man, quoting the original: ‘This laxity of morals in the female is certainly more captivating to a libertine imagination than the cold arguments of reason, that give no sex to virtue. But should experience prove that there is a beauty in virtue, a charm in order, which necessarily implies exertion, a depraved sensual taste may give way to a more manly one - and melting feelings to ration satisfactions.’ (Vindication of the Rights of Man, 1960 edn., p.116; cited in Terry Eagleton, ‘Aesthetics and Politics in Edmund Burke’, Michael Kenneally, ed., Irish Literature and Culture, Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992, pp.25-34, p.30.)
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James Joyce refers to Edmund Burke only in his listing of the Anglo-Irish writers in “Ireland, Isle of Saints and Sages” (1907): ‘[…] Edmund Burke, whom the English themselves called the modern Demosthenes and considered the most profound orator who had ever spoken in the House of Commons.’ (Ellsworth Mason, ed., Critical Writings, 1959, p.170.)
Seamus Deane, "Christmas at Beaconsfield", a long poem on Burke, is excerpted in Andrew Carpenter & Peter Fallon, eds., The Writers: A Sense of Place (1980), pp.29-32. It concerns the visit of Sir James Mackintosh to Beaconsfield at Christmas 1796. Prefatory note: ‘[...] Mackintosh, famous then as the author of a tract supporting the French Revolution, is about to be converted by Burke to an hostility towards the Revolution and all it represents. His career is about to be blighted. It is snowing outside.’
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)