Author: Joyce, Thomas
Biography:
JOYCE, Thomas (fl 1832)
The only known work by Thomas Joyce, The Elements (1832), met with consistently derisive reviews, most of them only two or three sentences long. The general view was that Joyce was not a good writer and had bitten off more than he could chew. The New Monthly Magazine observed that “There is not an ounce of Philosophy in this Poem.” O’Donoghue includes Joyce among his poets of Ireland without providing any biographical information in support of the claim, and may have been making an assumption about Joyce’s background on the basis of the name alone. In the absence of any concrete evidence, there are too many men of that name to make an identification possible at present through public records. (ancestry.com 28 Dec. 2024; findmypast.com 28 Dec. 2024; O’Donoghue; British Magazine 2 [1832], 173-4; New Monthly Magazine Oct. 1832, 436; Athenaeum [1832], 585) HJ