Life
1841-1878 [Charles Anderson Read], b. nr. Sligo, the son of a landowner
penurised by Encumbered Estates Act who turned to school-teaching; work
as merchant in Rathfriland, Co. Down but failed in that business; joined
Henderson’s publishing house, London, 1863; ed. and contrib. to Henderson’s
Young Folks; issued novels and sketches, incl. Love’s Services
and Aileen Aroon, or Savourneen Dheelish and seven others, one
of which appeared in Dublin University Magazine; compiled and edited
A Cabinet of Irish Literature (3 vols., 1876-78), to which a fourth
and final vol. was added by T. P. O’Connor (1880); reissued by Katherine
Tynan, with additions (1902). DNB JMC PI IF DIB DIW DIL SUTH
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Works
The Cabinet of Irish Literature: Selections from the Works of the Chief
Poets, Orators, and Prose Writers of Ireland, with biographical sketches
and literary notices / by / Charles A. Read, F.R.H.S. / Author of “Tales
and Stories of Irish life”; “Stories from the Ancient Classics”,
&c., 3 vols.(Edinburgh: Blackie 1879); another edition, [ed.]
T. P. O’Connor (London & Edinburgh 1880) [infra.]
[T. P. O’Connor, ed.,] The Cabinet / of / Irish Literature / selections from the works of the / Chief Poets, Orators, and Prose Writers / of Ireland / with biographical sketches and literary notices / by / Charles A. Read, F.R.H.S. / Author of “Tales and Stories of Irish life”; “Stories from the Ancient Classics”, &c. / Vol. IV. / By T. P. O’Connor, M. A. /London: Blackie & Son, Old Bailey / Glasgow, Edinburgh, / and 89 Talbot Street, Dublin [1876-78]; Preface subscribed T. P. O’Connor, London April 1880; as infra]. Do., another edn., ed. Katherine Tynan, ([S.L.] Gresham Publishing Company 1902).
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Notes
Dictionary of National Biography contains one entry for
Charles Anderson Read (1841-1878), ed. Cabinet, and another for
Charles Reade (1814-1884), English novelist and dramatist; the latter
is the author of Masks and Faces, a play which he turned into the
novel Peg Woffington that ‘attained to immense popularity’.
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904); ‘An Irish Mistake’ and ‘Beyond the River’, as in Cabinet, Vol. 4. See also Irish Book Lover, Vol. 14.
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists Aileen Aroon [1870] and Savourneen Dheelish (1869; 1870, 6th ed.), based on the central incident in Carleton’s ‘Wild Goose Lodge’, and set around Dundalk; otherwise described as a tale of false accusation.
Belfast Public Library holds Peg Woffington (1899), illus. by Hugh Thomson [by Charles Reade]; also Aileen Aroon (n.d.); Cabinet (edn. of 1906); Savourneen Dheelish (1869).
T. P. O’Connor included a selection of writings by Read in
the additional fourth volume of Cabinet of Irish Literature (1880),
together with a notice on him supplied by one Charles Gibbon.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)