Author: Eyre, John
Biography:
EYRE, John (fl 1823-54)
The only information about this elusive author comes from his publications and even they contain little in the way of facts about his family and way of life. His first publications, The True Convert and Man's Ruin and Recovery, were printed in Northampton in 1823. A convert to Wesleyan Methodism, he emigrated to the United States in 1832 and tried farming in Ohio until 1835, at which point he gave it up and began moving towards the northeast, printing and selling his works on the road. They are for the most part epistolary, containing advice to immigrants, accounts of the country, and pious reflections. He passed through Buffalo, Newark, Syracuse, Toronto, and other places; came to rest briefly in Albany; and seems to have settled in New York City where presumably he died some time after the appearance of his last work, a poem entitled The Story of Joseph and his Brethren (1854?). HJ