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Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852) ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS

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Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852) AN OUTSTANDING RECENT DISCOVERY: ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LYRICS AND MUSIC. manuscript, 176pp 28 by 23cm., 11 by 9in. A bound volume of manuscript music and lyrics, prefaced by a part lengthy letter to "My Ladyship", which we presume to be Moore's patron the Marchioness Dowager of Donegal. The letter and 24 pages of lyrics and notes are in Moore's hand, as are some of the sheets of music and notes on other pages. Discovered recently in a job lot of antiquarian books in Wiltshire (where Moore spent the latter part of his life), this is a very important archive for the student of Ireland's greatest lyricist and recorder of "old Irish minstrelsy" as he himself put it. Leather binding, lacking covers, apparently missing a few pages, but otherwise very good condition Born in Aungier Street in Dublin over his father's grocery shop, he was educated by Samuel Whyte (a member of this auction house's family) at his English Grammar School across the street. Whyte, a published poet, encouraged young Moore in his love of verse. His fellow pupils at Whyte's Academy (which later moved to Grafton Street) included Robert Emmet, Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington). He went on to study at Trinity College, which had recently allowed entry to Catholic students, and studied law at the Middle Temple in London. It was as a poet, translator, balladeer and singer that he found fame. His work soon became immensely popular and included The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, The Meeting of the Waters and many others. His ballads were first published as Moore's Irish Melodies (commonly called Moore's Melodies) Moore was also successful as a figure in London society and secured a valuable appointment as Registrar to the Admiralty in Bermuda. From there, he travelled in Canada and the United States. It was after this trip that he published his book, Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems, which included the well known Lines Written at the Cohos (sic), or Falls of the Mohawk River, among other famous verses. He returned to England and married an actress, Elizabeth "Bessy" Dyke, in 1811. Moore had expensive tastes, and, despite the large sums he was earning from his writing, soon got into debt, a situation which was exacerbated by the embezzlement of money by the man he had employed to deputise for him in Maine. Moore became liable for the £6,000 which had been illegally appropriated. In 1819, he was forced to leave Britain — in company with Lord John Russell — and live in Paris until 1822 (notably with the family of Martin de Villamil), when the debt was finally paid off. Some of this time was spent with Lord Byron, whose literary executor Moore became. He was much criticised later for allowing himself to be persuaded into destroying Byron's memoirs at the behest of Byron's family due to their damningly honest content. Moore did, however, edit and publish Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life (1830). He finally settled in Sloperton Cottage at Bromham, Wiltshire, England, and became a novelist and biographer as well as a successful poet. He received a state pension, but his personal life was dogged by tragedy including the untimely deaths of all of his five children within his lifetime and the suffering of a stroke in later life, which disabled him from performances - the activity at which he was most renowned. His remains are in the vault at St. Nicholas, Bromham. Moore is considered Ireland's National Bard. Many composers have set the poems of Thomas Moore to music. They include Gaspare Spontini, Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz, Charles Ives, William Bolcom, Lori Laitman, Benjamin Britten and Henri Duparc.

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