Throughout his professional life, the poet Thomas Moore (1779–1852) was variously celebrated and vilified for both his verse and his politics. Born in Dublin, he remained an ardent Irish patriot until his death. This eight-volume collection of Moore's memoirs, diaries and letters, edited by his friend Lord John Russell (1792–1878) and first published between 1853 and 1856, provides rare insights into a man whose genius was applauded by the Morning Chronicle as 'embracing almost all sides of imaginative literature, of criticism and philosophy'. Opening with a portrait of Lord John Russell and a view of Moore's residence in Paris, Volume 5 contains the poet's diary for the period 1825–8. During these years, Moore embarked on a new career as biographer of the playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and published the political satire Odes upon Cash, Corn, Catholics, and Other Matters (1828).
