Handy Andy: A Tale of Irish Life

by Samuel Lover

Samuel Lover, born in Dublin in 1797, went to Dublin University. He fled his father's stockbroking office and became an accomplished miniaturist and marine painter until failing eyesight forced him to abandon that craft. First published in 1842, Handy Andy was, according to The Dublin Monitor, "Decidedly the best story of the day, full of frolic, genuine fun, and exquisite touches of Irish humour". A series of sketches depicting life in Ireland in the mid-19th century with the hero, Handy Andy being faced with a number of situations in which he always made the wrong decision - or at least - his actions were always met with failure. Tales of Andy Rooney and his Irish country life and the peasantry. Lover produced a number of Irish songs, of which several, including The Angel's Whisper, Molly Bawn, and The Four-Leaved Shamrock, attained great popularity. He also wrote some novels, of which Rory O' More (in its first form a ballad), and Handy Andy are the best known, and short Irish sketches, which, with his songs, he combined into a popular entertainment called Irish Nights. He joined with Dickens in founding Bentley's Magazine, and he was the founder of the Dublin University Magazine.

Genres: Classics, Historical Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2001

About the author

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_...

Reviews

[Peadar O'Maoileoin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic. It's hilarious and offers an interesting view into Irish satire of the mid 1800s. Andy is a hilarious character and the tales of Murphy and Dick the Devil are brilliant as well.

A must read. I'll definitely be reading this again.

[Mark Saxton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm going to give it a four because the scene where one of the characters passes out drunk and when awoken is convinced by his friends he'd actually died and they've resurrected him using electricity (in 1842 a common discussion (think Frankenstein 1818) I found hilarious, and much of the rest is amusing if a little un-PC these days.