SHAMROCK LEAVES. Or, Tales and sketches of Ireland by HOARE. MRS. (Mary Anne)

J. M'Glashan. Dublin. -- Partridge & Oakey. London. 1851. FIRST EDITION. 8vo. (6.6 x 4.3 inches). 237pp, 2pp of publishers adverts. Illustrated with a colour frontis, vignette on extra title page and four full page plates, all in aquatint, printed by Monkhouse of York. Text printed by John O'Brien, Cork. Publishers red morocco grained cloth with elaborate gilt decoration and lettering to the spine. Both boards with blind border and decorative corner designs. Gilt stamped title within a garland of Shamrocks to the front board and a floral display in a decorative vase on the rear. Pink endpapers, which have toned to grey in the middle of the pages. All edges gilt. There is a prize presentation inscription to the front free endpaper, dated 1851, but the toning of the paper has made it difficult to read much of the text. Corners of the boards are bumped but overall this is a better than very good copy of this scarce and interesting book. ------------ Literature and the Irish Famine 1845-1919. Melissa Fegan. Page 213.- "Mrs Hoare must claim the prize for the earliest fictional representations of the Great Famine: her Shamrock leaves, written in 1846-7, and published in 1851, shows remarkable prescience. Her story 'The Living and the Dead: an Irish sketch', celebrating Irish customs connected with 'waking' the dead, was written in the midst of an ongoing famine, when such ceremonies were defunct." --- ".... Of all Famine narrators, only Mrs Hoare employs first-person narrative, in her short story 'Little Mary: A Tale of the Black Year'...." . --------- Mrs. Hoare (circa 1818-1872) published only this one book. It contains 19 short stories, all originally published in various periodicals but here collected for the first time, and 8 of which refer to Famine - The beautiful city - The Ogham stone - The black potatoes - Irish beggars - The knitted collar - Father and son - Little Mary - The living and the dead - The faction fight - An affair of honour - James Cronin - The old Irish mansion - The sailor prelate - The bog-oak shamrocks - The quack doctor - The brethren of the pups - A sketch of famine - The young painter - Daniel Leary.