[Dublin] McCarthy, Muriel / Sherwood-Smith, Caroline / Hemmens, Sue (Compiled by)

The Fountain of Genius – Poems, plays and prose in Marsh’s Library. Catalogue.

Dublin, Archbishop Marsh’s Library, 2003. 15 cm x 21 cm. 160 pages with illustrations. Original softcover. Excellent condition with only very minor signs of external wear.

Includes examples of the following contents:– Poems: The Great Epics / ‘Once-upon-a-time’ Poems / Sonnets / Marsh’s Contemporaries’ Poems / Diverse Verse / Plays: Ancient & Mediaeval Drama / Elizabethan & Restoration / The Scandalous Profession / From Smock Alley to the Abbey / Venice to Versailles / Prose: Ancient Tales & Famous Fables / Virtuous Liaisons / Of Strange Lands & Peoples / Essays, Morals & Maxims / Joyceana etc.

″May I a small house and a large garden have;/ And a few friends, and many books, both true,/ Both wise, and both delightful too!″

These attractive lines from Abraham Cowley’s poem The Wish provide the epigraph to “The Fountain of Genius”, the fascinating and informative catalogue issued by Marsh’s Library in St Patrick’s Close, Dublin to mark the alluring exhibition of poems, plays and prose running there until the end of April.

The title of the catalogue is explained in its introduction. Having taken us through the trove of literary treasures on offer in the exhibition, the compilers ask: “Who would have thought that so much imagination, so much creativity, is to be found in the dry-as-dust shelves of this ancient library?″

Charles Maturin wrote many of his novels in Marsh’s Library; Tom Moore worked there on his Odes of Anacreon, which made him famous; James Joyce was a visitor before he went on to literary greatness. And Jonathan Swift, dean of the cathedral opposite, was most likely an habitué. He is said to have remarked about his Tale of a Tub: “Good God, what a genius I had when I wrote that book.” The library could very well have been a fountain of genius for all these great figures.

Archbishop Narcissus Marsh, who had the library built in 1701 and endowed it with his considerable collection of books, was chiefly interested in Greek and Roman literature, but few of the books in the current display belonged to the archbishop”. (The Irish Times, Dec 29th 2003, An Irish Man’s Diary).

• Keywords: Catalogue Irish History Five – Local Irish History · Dublin · Irish History · Marsh Library · Plays · Poems · Prose
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 44080AB

EUR 78,--