Samuel Lover

Lover, Samuel (1797–1868), Irish novelist, dramatist, song‐writer, and painter. Primarily known for his miniature paintings, Lover was also a gifted musician and writer, who took a strong interest in Irish folklore. For instance, he collected tales and anecdotes from the Irish peasantry in Legends and Stories of Ireland (1831), and his two novels, Rory O'More (1837) and Handy Andy (1831), incorporate a great deal of Irish folklore. In 1844, after his eyesight began to fail, he began touring England and America performing Irish ballads, songs, and tales that were very successful and contributed to the rise of Irish national consciousness.

Bibliography

• Bernard, W. B., The Life of Samuel Lover (1874).
• Symington, A. J., Samuel Lover (1880).

— Jack Zipes

Lover, Samuel (1797-1868), novelist, painter and song-writer. Born in Dublin, he displayed precocious abilities at an early age. He began writing tales loosely based on folklore for Dublin magazines, later gathered as Legends and Stories of Ireland (2 vols., 1831 and 1834). He moved to London in 1833, where he found success as a society painter and author of songs, such as the stage-Irish ‘Rory O'More’, which he worked up into a novel and play in 1837. Handy Andy: A Tale of Irish Life (1842) was serialized in Bentley's Miscellany, which he founded with Charles Dickens and others. He toured his one-man show to the USA and then produced Paddy's Portfolio (1848), a new entertainment based on his experiences abroad.

Quotes:

"Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eyes."

"Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise."

Samuel Lover

Samuel Lover (February 24, 1797 Dublin – July 6, 1868) was an Irish songwriter, novelist, as well as a painter of portraits, chiefly miniatures. He was the grandfather of Victor Herbert.

Samuel was born at number 60 Grafton Street and went to school at Samuel Whyte's at 79 Grafton Street, now home to Bewley's cafe. By 1830 he was secretary of the Royal Hibernian Academy and lived at number 9 D'Olier Street.

Samuel eventually moved to London and made his main residence there.

Lover produced a number of Irish songs, of which several — including The Angel's Whisper, Molly Bawn, and The Four-leaved Shamrock — attained great popularity. He also wrote some novels, of which Rory O'More (in its first form a ballad), and Handy Andy are the best known, and short Irish sketches, which, with his songs, he combined into a popular entertainment called Irish Nights. He joined with Dickens in founding Bentley's Magazine.

"When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen." - Samuel Lover

Lover's grandson was Victor Herbert who is best known for his many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway.

A memorial in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin summarises his achievements Poet, painter, novelist and composer, who, in the exercise of a genius as distinguished in its versatility as in its power, by his pen and pencil illustrated so happily the characteristics of the peasantry of his country that his name will ever be honourably identified with Ireland.

This article incorporates public domain text from : Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J. M. Dent & Sons; New York, E. P. Dutton.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Samuel Lover

• Works by Samuel Lover at Project Gutenberg
• Free scores by Samuel Lover in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

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