Robert Dwyer Joyce, M.D. / James J. Walsh.

  • Walsh, James J. (James Joseph), 1865-1942.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Robert Dwyer Joyce, M.D. / James J. Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    C: *1 TO'f 5i8Sp ; 80URCI Pu<rtp» f L oo ROBERT DWYER JOYCE, M. D.1 BY JAMES J. WALSH, M. D., PH. D., LL. D. C/ In the fall of 1876 there appeared from the press of Roberts Brothers in Boston a volume of the No Name Series called “ Deirdre.” This series was published with- out the name of the authors, and, though the individual novels were to be written according to the publisher s announcement by eminent authors, the authorship was to remain an inviolable secret. The success of each of the volumes was expected to depend entirely on the writer’s ability to catch and retain the reader’s interest without any reference to the author’s prestige or previous repu- tation. The first volume of the series was “ Mercy Phil- brick’s Choice” which received an extremely warm recep- tion, and the authorship of which became one of the mooted problems in all the literary journals of the day. It was rather surprising, then, to have a long poem ap- pear as the second number of the series, and still more surprising to have that long poem on an Irish subject and evidently written by an Irish-American. The success of “Deirdre,” however, fully justified the publisher’s choice in the matter. Long poems are usu- ally not popular reading, yet this Irish epic proved to have elements of interest in it that made it one of the popular books of the day. We are likely to think that the standard of taste of readers was higher at that time 1 The material for this was first used as an address at a dinner of the Celtic Medical Society of New York City.