Author: Shannon, Edward N.
Biography:
SHANNON, Edward N. (1796-1860: findmypast.com)
His middle name was Nathan. He was most probably the child baptised as a Roman Catholic at St. Audoen's, Dublin, Ireland, the son of Edward and Catherine Shannon on 16 Aug. 1796, but the birth record includes no middle name and his mother's name is hard to decipher. Nothing is known of his education. He did not marry and although he left a significant body of work as a writer, he struggled financially. He published at first in London and anonymously. (His Philadelphia publisher, however, used his name on the title-page.) He was a great admirer of Italian literature and of Byron. In 1836 he published a collection of his own work spuriously attributed to Byron "and some of his contemporaries": Arnaldo, Gaddo, and Other Unacknowledged Poems. The volume also includes his translation of ten cantos of Dante's Inferno, under the pseudonym Odoardo Volpi. O'Donoghue remarks admiringly that Shannon was "a clever poet whose pieces were really attributed to Lord Byron by some." The RLF supported him with £40 in 1841 and another £30 in 1843. J. H. Merivale, who recommended him on the first occasion, explained that he had costs associated with publication but no fixed source of income, and relied on his family for occasional assistance. In 1842, Tales Old and New . . . the first volume of the Works of Edward N. Shannon appeared in Dublin and London, dedicated to the Marquis of Lansdowne, with a preface defending the author against anticipated charges of imitation. There was no second volume. He may have been writing for periodicals all along; in the 1840s his name is associated briefly with the new nationalist paper, The Nation, founded in 1842. According to O'Donoghue, he became the editor of the Galway Vindicator (founded 1841) and died in Galway. (findmypast.com 4 Feb. 2025; RLF #1037; WorldCat; O'Donoghue) HJ