James Dacres Devlin | Laboring-Class Poets Online

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Names

First Name:

James

Middle Name(s):

Dacres

Last Name(s):

Devlin

Other Name:

John Dacres Devlin

Gender:

male

Bio Dates

Death Year:

1863

Death Year Approximated

Locations

Nationality:

English

Other Locations:

London

Transatlantic:

No

Class and Labor

Laboring-Class Status: Uncertain

Industry:

Shoemaking

Occupation:

shoemaker

journalist

Politics and Religion

Affiliations:

radical

References and Sources

References and Sources:

Biblio Texts:

151-2

313

216-217

Other Analog References:

Misnamed by Brian Maidment as "John Dacres Devlin" (1987).

Robert Bloomfield, Remains (1824), I, 164

Madeline House, Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson (eds), The Pilgrim Edition of the Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume 6 1850-1852 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 163

Simon Kövesi, ‘John Clare’s deaths: poetry, education and poverty’, in Simon Kövesi and Scott McEathron (eds), New Essays on John Clare: Poetry, Culture and Community (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 8

Simon Kövesi, John Clare: Nature, Criticism and History (Houndmills: Palgrave, forthcoming), conclusion

Manuscript Information:

Devlin first essay’s title casts light on his sense of himself as a craftsman: ‘The Trialist; or Head-attempts. By a Hand-Producer, A New Beginning with an Old Name’. Kövesi also describes and quotes from a very significant lost work by Devlin, ‘the first and only book-length poem dedicated to Clare published during his lifetime’, a poem entitled Go to Epping!, pub. by ‘the pre-eminent radical publisher in London, Effingham Wilson’, and now known only through ‘fragments quoted in a review in the Chartist weekly Cleave’s Penny Gazette’ (Kövesi, 2015 , 156).

Referenced Poem Titles:

A Reflection, on reading the appeal, in behalf of the poet John Clare in the “English Journal

The November Primrose

Publication Notes:

Misnamed by Brian Maidment as "John Dacres Devlin" (1987).

PoetId:

427

Priority:

1 - Mirrors Superlist - Additional Research Necessary

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Relationships

Source	Relationship Type	Target	Description	View
James Dacres Devlin	supported, addressed writing to	John Clare	Simon Kövesi has traced Devlin’s notable role in the 1841 campaign to raise support and funding for John Clare, then languishing in an asylum in High Beach, through a series of essays and poems pub. in the English Journal. Kövesi reproduces the poem, ‘A Reflection, on reading the appeal, in behalf of the poet John Clare in the “English Journal” May 15’ (first printed in the Journal, 1, no. 23, 5 June 1841), along with its extended footnote comparing Clare with Robert Burns, Robert Bloomfield and Thomas Chatterton.	View