George Darley

George Darley (1795–1846) was an Irish poet, novelist, and critic.

Biography

He was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College. Having decided to follow a literary career, in 1820 he went to London.

Darley fell into depression, and died on 23 November 1846 in London. Playwright Dion Boucicault was a nephew. His grandnephew was the Irish musician Arthur Warren Darley.

Works

Darley published his first poem, Errors of Ecstasie, in 1822. He also wrote for the London Magazine, under the pseudonym of John Lacy. In it appeared his best-known story, Lilian of the Vale, which Edgar Allan Poe thought had "wonderfully succeeded." Various other books followed, including Sylvia, or The May Queen, a poem (1827).

Thereafter Darley joined the Athenaeum, in which he became a severe critic. He was also a dramatist and studied old English plays, editing those of Beaumont and Fletcher in 1840. His poem "It is not beauty I desire" was included by F. T. Palgrave in the first edition of his Golden Treasury as an anonymous lyric of the 17th century.