Samuel Lover (1797–1868) was an Irish songwriter, composer, novelist, and painter of miniatures who joined Richard Bentley in founding Bentley’s Miscellany, a collection of stories, drollery, poetry, and gossip in which Dickens first published Oliver Twist. Among his works was the song “Rory O’More,” which he also developed into a novel and a comic opera. His novel Handy Andy is often seen as a source of the theatrical stereotype of the Irishman. Lover famously said, “When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.”
WORKS THAT HAVE APPEARED IN NARRATIVE:
- The Little Weaver of Duleek Gate, a short story, in Stories of the Week: 2018–2019