File 1 - Letter with enclosures from Martin Secker to Edward P. McGrath

Identity area

Reference code

IE 2135 P8/1/1

Title

Letter with enclosures from Martin Secker to Edward P. McGrath

Date(s)

  • 24 April 1957 (Creation)

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3 items

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(1929-1994)

Biographical history

Edward Patrick McGrath was born in New York City on 8 December 1929, the son of Edward Patrick McGrath and Elizabeth née Breen. His parents had emigrated to the United States from Belfast. He received a bachelor’s degree from New York University in 1958 and a master’s degree from Brooklyn College in 1960.

Edward McGrath began his career in journalism at the New York Herald Tribune in the 1950s. Over the years, he worked in publishing and public relations. During the final twelve years of his life he was president of McGrath Associates, a corporate communications consulting firm. Edward was also a writer. His published non-fiction works included articles on such far-ranging subjects as whaling and witchcraft. He had an interest in Irish literature and wrote fiction for personal pleasure. In 1974, Edward and his wife moved from New York City to Weston, Connecticut where among other things he held the position of chairman of the Library Board. Edward McGrath died in Weston on 23 August 1994.

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Letter from Martin Secker, director of The Richards Press Ltd., 5 Royal Opera Arcade, Pall Mall, London. Informs McGrath that he cannot be of any help as Mr. Grant Richards (founder of Richards Press) and others associated with the business at the time of the publication of Joyce’s Dubliners were now dead. Also notes that the reason why publication was delayed was because ‘publishers were too blind to recognize genius when they saw it’ and that any suggestion of outside influences was ‘purely moonshine’. Included with this letter by McGrath is a brief history of Richards Press Ltd. and a newspaper cutting advertising a Sotheby’s auction at which inter alia the page proofs of Joyce’s Dubliners were to be sold.

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  • Béarla

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    P8/1

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