Delicious Mirth
The Life and Times of James McCarroll
Recovering the lyrical voice and remarkable literary life of James McCarroll, Canada's Irish-born poet and humorist.
Description
James McCarroll (1814–1892) was a talented Irish poet, journalist, humorist, musician, and arts critic who left his mark on nineteenth-century Canada by seemingly engaging with anything topical in every medium. Often writing anonymously or under pseudonyms, McCarroll's best-known nom de plume was "Terry Finnegan," who wrote weekly comic letters to his "cousin" Thomas D'Arcy McGee, offering advice on political and social matters. Yet, since his death, McCarroll's contributions to early Canadian writing and culture have largely been forgotten. Making a case for the recuperation of Canada's lost Irish voice, Delicious Mirth seeks to gather and contextualize the extant fragments of this outspoken and flamboyant entertainer and commentator. Adept in the rich excesses of the Paddy brogue, McCarroll spoke for his beloved but broken country and sought to bring the Irish legacy of expansive prose and lyric poetry to Canada. Following the fluctuations of his personal hope, ambition, and talent through the years, Michael Peterman maps McCarroll's responses to the main events of the late nineteenth century such as Irish emigration, the settlement and growth of Upper Canada, the extension of the railway network, little magazine culture, reform politics and responsible government, the spiritualist movement, nascent Canadian theatre, classical and Celtic folk music, the US Civil War, Confederation, and most notably the Fenian movement, in which he became involved. His travels took him to many places, in particular Peterborough, Cobourg, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Buffalo, and New York City. Revealing a man of immense creative energy and cultural significance who has been lost to Canadian literary historians for over a hundred years, Delicious Mirth shows that McCarroll's life and works are outstanding achievements and deserve fresh attention today.
Reviews
"As Peterman sleuthed through old newspapers, he realized that McCarroll's footprint had disappeared from history because of the pseudonyms, the lack of a coherent archive, and McCarroll's ignominious tumble into Fenianism in the late 1860s. But now, thanks to Peterman's careful research, McCarroll has been reinstated as an Irish-Canadian of wit and cultural significance." Canada's History
"With this biography, Peterman aims to restore writer James McCarroll (1814–92) to his rightful place in the development of 19th-century Canadian poetry and culture. Peterman relies on decades of research, mostly based on fragmentary available information since much material on McCarroll has been lost, to chronicle the writer's life and provide samples of his poetry as well as a detailed overview of 19th-century Canada." Library Journal
"Delicious Mirth conveys a great deal of engaging and interesting detail about mid-nineteenth-century Upper Canada culture. It contributes significantly to our understanding of the role played by the Irish in Canada's early life, uncovering McCarroll's relations with such major figures as Thomas D'Arcy McGee and John A. Macdonald, as well as with a plethora of singers and writers and public figures." Gerald Lynch, University of Ottawa
"Delicious Mirth is a welcome addition to the biographical literature of nineteenth-century Canada. It sheds light on an important if secondary personality who made his mark on the cultural development of pre-Confederation Ontario. Perhaps most importantly, the author makes plain the price paid by this romantic Irishman who ended up on the wrong side of the loyalist version of Canadian history. That price was historical anonymity. That is, until now. Happily, Delicious Mirth restores the talented James McCarroll to a more public place, where his literary output and other achievements can be better understood and evaluated." American Review of Canadian Studies
"More than the chronological thread of a life, Delicious Mirth is a portrait of a man's creativity as it was conditioned by circumstances. We see McCarroll's personal hope, ambition, and talent shaped by the larger social patterns of the century, and so we see them afresh, too, through his perspective." Eli MacLaren, McGill University