William Maginn

William Maginn (1794‑1842), journalist and miscellaneous writer, born at Cork, became a contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, and after moving to London in 1824 became for a few months the Paris correspondent to The Representative, a paper started by J. Murray, the publisher. When its short career was run, he helped to found the ultra Tory "Standard," a newspaper which he edited along with a fellow graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Stanley Lees Giffard, and he also wrote for the more scandalous Sunday paper, "The Age." In 1830 he instigated and became one of the leading supporters of Fraser's Magazine. His Homeric Ballads, much praised by contemporary critics,^[1] were published in Fraser's between 1839 and 1842.

In 1836, he fought a duel with Grantley Berkeley, a member of Parliament. Three rounds of shots were fired, but no one was struck. Berkeley had brutally assaulted magazine publisher James Fraser over a review Maginn wrote of Berkeley's novel "Berkeley Castle," and Maginn had called him out. One of the most brilliant periodical writers of his time, he has left no permanent work behind him. In his later years, 1842, his intemperate habits landed him in debtor's prison, and when he emerged through the grace of the Insolvent Debtor's Act he was in an advanced stage of tuberculosis. He wrote until the end, including in the first volume of "Punch," but he died in extreme poverty in Walton-on-Thames in August of 1842, survived by his wife Ellen, and daughters Annie and Ellen, and son John.

Notes

1. ^ E.g. Matthew Arnold, On Translating Homer.

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.

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