New donation: Harding’s Dublin Impartial Newsletter
The RIA Library is delighted to have acquired an edition of a rare 18th century newspaper.
The Library is delighted to have received a donation of an edition of an early Dublin newspaper, Harding’s Dublin Impartial News Letter (1719). The printer, John Harding (1697?-1725), was closely associated with Jonathan Swift and published his Drapier’s Letters series. The Drapier’s Letters, along with several other controversial publhe printing trade after his marriage to Sarah Sadlier (fl. 1721–9), the daughter of prominent Dublin printer, Elizabeth Sadlier. There is an advertisement for Elizabeth’s printing business on the reverse side of our newly acquired edition of the Dublin Impartial News Letter. After Harding’s death, his wife Sarah took over the business and went on to print what is probably Swift’s most famous work after Gulliver’s Travels, the satirical pamphlet, A modest proposal (1729). A copy of Sarah’s printing is preserved in the RIA Library as part of the Haliday Collection.
According to Newsplan: report of the Newsplan project in Ireland, revised edition (1998), Dublin City Library and Archive is the only repository known to hold a full run of the newspaper, while the British Library have incomplete holdings and the National Library of Ireland holds a microfilm copy of the full run. We are thrilled to have added this rare example of early Irish print and news culture to the collection.
Image caption: Harding’s Dublin impartial news letter, RIA RRG/2/F/17(a)
