IRVING

Rarely has such intensive genealogical research played such a pivotal role in the family life and publication history of a great writer. In the year 1850, some of Washington Irving’s works were gathered up by the publisher Henry Bohn in London and reprinted in his “Popular Library” series. The publishers John Murray and Richard Bentley, however, understood themselves to hold the copyright to Irving’s material in Britain. Murray in particular was incensed, and threatened Bohn with legal action. Bohn, in turn, held the position that Murray had no copyright claim whatsoever, as Irving was not a Brit. Murray thereupon set about attempting to prove that nearly no-one was more British than Washington Irving, enrolling the help of genealogically-astute researchers in the Orkney islands, prominent among whom were James Robertson, Sheriff-Substitute, and George Petrie, County Clerk. The results were resounding, and included an ancient tie to Irving of Bonshaw, a man credited with sheltering Robert Bruce, freedom fighter, at a crucial juncture several centuries earlier. The whole escapade fired up the curiosity of Washington Irving’s nephew Pierre Munro Irving (1802-1876), serving as Washington Irving’s secretary and care-giver, who spent considerable effort in the following decades following up on the family tree. Another nephew, the similarly-named Pierre Paris Irving (1806-1878), diverted his grand tour of Europe at the end, in 1856, to incorporate a visit to the Orkneys, where he was welcomed with open arms by his genealogist comrades, including Robertson and Petrie as well as other Orcadians. It is this second nephew who is referenced in the letter at hand. This letter and this set therefore commemorate, as a multi-volume monument, the mutual respect and affection that the Orkney researchers and the American branch of the Irving family developed during this extended exploration, over several years, of these deep roots in the Northern Isles. (See the admirably concise account of the saga of these genealogical investigations in Wayne Kime’s book Pierre M. Irving and Washington Irving: A Collaboration in Life and Letters (1977), pp. 140-142. Notably, however, Kime mentions neither this letter nor this set, which were likely unknown to him at the time.)