Life
1795-1845 [pseuds. “Guy Penseval” and
“John Lacey”]; b. Dublin, ed. TCD, maths
and classics; grad. 1820; went to London, 1821, writing drama criticism
and ‘dramaticules’ and verse regularly for the London Magazine
from 1823, meeting Beddoes, John Clare, Lamb and Hazlitt; and for Athenaeum
from 1824 as drama critic; author of successful mathematics works, Popular
Algebra and Familiar Astronomy, et al., between 1826 and 1830;
issued Errors of Ecstasie and Other Poems (1822), and - as Guy
Penseval - The Labours of Idleness; or Seven Nights’ Entertainments
(1826); Sylvia, or the May Queen (1827); The New Sketch
Book (1829); wrote Nepenthe (1839), an account of the poet’s
imaginative longings; dramatic chronicles, Thomas a’ Beckett
(1840) and Ethelstan, or the Battle of Brunanburh (1841), subtitled
‘scenes for the study’; Sylvia, The May Queen (1827);
Plighted Troth, a play by Charles Darley, was produced by Macready
at Drury Lane in 1842; friend of Darley, of whose love for Mary he used
the phrase ‘dumb music’) contributed a critical essay to Moxon’s
edition of The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher; six ‘Syren
Songs’ were included in The Tribute, a publication gathered
for the benefit of an impoverished writer; suffered from stammer, ill-health
and depression; his wide literary acquaintance included Tennyson; Dion
Boucicault, a nephew, said that the family regarded him as a schoolboy
who should be whipped back to his lessons; corresponded with his br. at
Queen’s College, Cork, as ‘Fodla Dun’ [var. ‘Fodladeen’];
the Complete Poetical Works were edited by Ramsay Colles (1908).
CAB DNB PI JMC DIB OCEL MKA RAF OCIL FDA
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Works
The Error of Ecstasie, A Dramatic Poem, with Other Pieces (London:
G. &. W. B. Whitaker 1822), vii, 72pp.; The Labours of Idleness,
or Seven Nights’ Entertainment, by ‘Guy Penseval’ (London:
John Taylor 1826), 330pp. [Epistle Dedicatory to the Reader; ‘The
Enchanted Lyre’; ‘Love’s Devotion’; ‘Pedro Ladron’;
‘Aileen Astore’; ‘The Dead Man’s Dream’; ‘Ellinore’;
‘Lilian of the Valley’, being starting-point of Sylvia];
The New Sketch Book, 2 vols. [priv. printed] (London 1829), with
‘epistle dedicatory’ by ‘G. Crayon, Jun.’; Nepenthe
(London: Matthews 1897); Sylvia, or The May Queen, A Lyrical
Drama in 5 acts (London: J. Taylor 1827) [James Duncan for Taylor],
vii, 217pp.; Nepenthe [priv. printed] (London: [?]1835), 69pp.
[incomplete edn. in BML]; Do., rep., intro. R A Streatfeild (London:
E: Mathews 1897), xvi, 61pp.; Thomas a’ Becket, A Dramatic Chronicle
in 5 acts (London: Edward Moxon 1840), vi, 144pp.; Ethelstan, or the
Battle of Brunanburh, A Dramatic Chronicle in 5 acts (London: Edward
Moxon 1841), 95pp.; Poems, a memorial tribute [priv. printed] (Liverpool
1890), 211pp.; R. A. Streatfeild ed. [intro. and notes], Selections
of the Poems of George Darley (London: Methuen 1904), viii, 180pp.
[poorly printed]; Ramsay Colles, ed., The Complete Poetical Works of
George Darley [now first collected, and reprinted from the rare orig.
edns. in the possession of the Darley family and ed. an intro. by R. C.]
(London: Routledge; NY: EP Dutton 1908), xxxvii, 538pp.; A[nn] Ridler,
ed., Selected Poems of George Darley (London: The Merrion Press
1979).
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Criticism
Streatfeild, ‘A Forgotten Poet, George Darley [rep. from Quarterly
Review] (1902), 13pp.
Irish Book Lover, 3, 2 (1911), pp.17-19. Claude C. Abbot, The Life and Letters of George Darley, Poet and Critic (London: OUP/Humphry Milford 1928).
Graham Greene, ‘George Darley’, in London Mercury, XXIX (1929).
Abbot, Further Letters of George Darley ... rep. from Durham Univ. Journal, Dec. 1940), 45pp.
A. J. Leventhal, George Darley, 1795-1846 (Dublin UP 1950).
J[ohn] Heath-Stubbs, The Darkling Plain, A Study of the Later Fortunes of Romanticism ... from George Darley to W. B. Yeats (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode 1950).
Greene, ‘George Darley’ in The Lost Childhood and Other Essays (London: Jonathan Cape 1951); Ann Ridler, Selected Poems of George Darley (1979).
Brendan Kennelly, ‘G. D., Poet & Mathematician’, in Hibernia, March 20 (1970), p.13.
Brian McKenna, Irish Literature (1978), cites essays by Padraic Colum (Irish Writing, 1950).
A. J. Leventhal (Dublin Mag., 1950), Derek Stanford (Envoy, 1951). In all of these the debate concerns Darley’s Irishness.
Robert Farren, Course of Irish Verse (1948), p.10.
ADD Bibl, an essay on Darley in Robert L. Stevenson, Retrospective Reviews, a literary log 1892-95, 2 vols. (John Lane 1896).
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; 1984).
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Notes
Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature, [1876-78]; Bibl. Familiar Astronomy (1830); Popular Algebra, Geometrical
Companion; Geometry and Trigonometry, all many eds.; Thomas a Becket,
tragedy (1841); Ethelstan [or, The Battle of Burnanburh],
dramatic chronicle (1841); ‘his last production was Extasie [sic]
and Other Poems’; REMS, Nepenthe is a sprawling account
of the poet’s imaginative and spiritual longings. NOTE,
Henry Boylan, Dictionary of Irish Biography (Dublin: Gill & MacMillan 1988); refers to Lillian of the Vale, a story in the manner of Washington Irving, as his least forgotten work, and dates his mathematical works 1826-28.
Anthologised in Arthur Quiller Couch, ed., Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1918 (new ed. 1929), item 648-51.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2; selects Nepenthe; 2, 6-7, 111, BIBL & COMM [as supra].
Belfast Public Library holds Selections from Poems (1904); Sylvia, or The May Queen (1892).
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. 2; No plays cited. Wrote works of note on mathematics; extensive bibliographical notes
In St. Patrick’s Cathedral there is a monument to Capt. Joseph W.
Darley, 4th Dragoons Guards; killed in action at Battle of Abu-Klea[?],
Sudan campaign, 17 Jan. 1885, aetat. 21.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)