The first scholarly
treatment of the life of William Maginn (1794-1842), David Latané’s
meticulously researched biography follows Maginn’s life from his early days in
Ireland through his career in Paris and London as political journalist and
writer and finally to his sad decline and incarceration in debtor’s prison. A
founding editor of the daily Standard (1827), Maginn was a prodigal author and
editor. He was an early and influential contributor to Blackwood’s Edinburgh
Magazine, and a writer from the Tory side for The Age, New Times, English
Gentleman, Representative, John Bull, and many other papers. In 1830, he
launched Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, the early venue for such
Victorians as Thackeray and Carlyle, and he was intimately involved with the
poet 'L.E.L.' In 1837, he wrote the prologue for the first issue of Bentley’s
Miscellany, edited by Dickens. Through painstaking archival research into
Maginn’s surviving letters and manuscripts, as well as those of his associates,
Latané restores Maginn to his proper place in the history of nineteenth-century
print culture. His book is essential reading for nineteenth-century scholars,
historians of the book and periodical, and anyone interested in questions of
authorship in the period.
Purchase at Ashgate
