|
Alexander Ireland (1810–1894) was a Scottish journalist, man of letters, and bibliophile, notable as a biographer of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as a friend of Emerson and other literary celebrities, including Leigh Hunt and Thomas Carlyle, as well as the geologist and scientific speculator Robert Chambers. His own most popular book was ''The Book-Lover's Enchiridion'', published under a pseudonym in 1882. ==Life== Ireland was born at Edinburgh on 9 May 1810; his father was a businessman. As a young man he had as friends Robert Chambers, William Chambers and John Gairdner. His friendship with Gairdner led to his acquaintance with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in 1833 came to Edinburgh: theirs was a lifelong friendship. In 1843 Ireland moved to Manchester as representative of a Huddersfield firm. In the same year Robert Chambers gave him a confidential task, to have the later highly controversial ''Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'' published anonymously. The secret was well kept until 1884, when everyone else involved in it was dead, and Ireland revealed it in a preface to the twelfth edition.〔 In 1846 Ireland succeeded Edward Watkin as publisher and business manager of the ''Manchester Examiner'', a paper founded the year before by Watkin, John Bright, and William McKerrow to compete with the ''Manchester Guardian'', on behalf of the Anti-Cornlaw League. The first editor was Thomas Ballantyne. Soon the ''Examiner'' absorbed the ''Manchester Times'' of Archibald Prentice, and as the ''Manchester Examiner and Times'' lasted for 40 years.〔 In 1847 and 1848 Emerson made his second visit to England, encouraged by Ireland, who made the arrangements for Emerson's lectures.〔 On Emerson's recommendation, Ireland took on the poet Henry Septimus Sutton for the ''Examiner'' in 1849. In 1851 Ireland was a member of the committee that organised the Manchester Free Library, where many books of his own later went. He cultivated the friendship of Thomas Carlyle and Leigh Hunt.〔 Eventually Liberal support swung from the ''Examiner'' to the ''Guardian'' when the latter's editorial line came down in favour of William Ewart Gladstone's Irish Home Rule proposals in 1886. The ''Examiner'' became unprofitable, passed into other hands, and was closed down. Ireland remained active as a writer in the press. He died on 7 December 1894 at Mauldeth Road, Withington.〔 A medallion portrait was engraved for ''Threads from the Life of John Mills'' (1899). A collection of Ireland's books was presented in 1895 to the Manchester Free Reference Library by Thomas Read Wilkinson, and a catalogue was issued in 1898. Ireland had possessed a fine library, rich in editions of the ''Anatomy of Melancholy''; but much of it had had to be sold.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alexander Ireland (journalist)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|