CUMMINS (Edward)
The Miscellaneous Poetic Works of E. Cummins, (better known by the name of) the Young Hibernian; dedicated by Permission to his Grace John Duke of Bedford, Later Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
THE YOUNG HIBERNIAN
A fascinating illustarated collection of juvenille poems by the fourteen year old Edward Cummins better known as the “Young Hibernian”.
We learn from the preface that young Edward Cummins received some ridicule when the proposed - at the age of fourteen - to produce a collection of poems. He states that it was through the support of the printer, John Barlow, that he was able to put the publication together. We know little else of Cummins other than that the National Library of Ireland has a small broadside song attributed to him. Cummins’s preface is dated March 1807 and said to have been written at Granby-Row in Dublin. The frontispiece shows a memorial to Trafalgar while the full page portraits accompany poems on Nelson, Pitt, Charles James Fox and the Duke of Leinster.
Provenance: Jane Edwards, signature on the title dated February 27th 1809.