John Corry (writer)

John Corry (fl. 1825) was an Irish topographer and writer.

Life

Corry, who was self-taught, was born in the north of Ireland. As an adult he went to Dublin, where he was a journalist. About 1792 he moved to London, as a professional writer. His history after 1825 is unknown.^[1]

Works

Most of Corry's works were published anonymously. Besides editing a periodical, he furnished the letterpress for the History of Liverpool (1810), published by Thomas Troughton; wrote vol. i. of the History of Bristol, 2 vols. (1816), the second volume being supplied by John Evans; and a History of Macclesfield (1817). More ambitious was the History of Lancashire, 2 vols. (1825), with a dedication to George IV.^[1] It was, however, derivative of a work of Matthew Gregson, of 1817.^[2]

His book The Detector of Quackery (1802) was a criticism of medical frauds and quackery of his day.^[3]

Publications

• Poems, [Dublin?], 17—.
• The Adventures of Felix and Rosarito, London, 1782.
• The Life of George Washington, London, 1800.
• The Detector of Quackery, London, 1802 (new edition under the title of Quack Doctors Dissected, London, Gloucester [printed 1810]).
• A Satirical View of London, London, 1801, which came to a fourth edition in 1809.
• Edwy and Bertha, London, 1802.
• Memoirs of Alfred Berkeley, London, 1802.
• Tales for the Amusement of Young Persons, London, 1802.
• The Life of William Cowper, London, 1803.
• The Life of Joseph Priestley, Birmingham, 1804 (2nd edition in the same year).
• Sebastian and Zeila, London [1805?].
• The Suicide; or, the Progress of Error, London [1805?].
• The Mysterious Gentleman Farmer, 3 vols., London, 1808.
• Strictures on the Expedience of the Addingtonian Extinguisher [i.e. Lord Sidmouth's Protestant Dissenting Bill], Macclesfield, 1811.
• The Elopement … Third edition (the History of Eliza, &c.), London [1810?].
• The English Metropolis; or, London in the year 1820, London, 1820.
• Memoir of John Collier ("Tim Bobbin"), prefixed to an edition of his Works, [Manchester? 1820?], and also in the edition published at Manchester in 1862.

Notes

1.  Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Corry, John". Dictionary of National Biography 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
2. Potier, Joanne. "Gregson, Matthew". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/6357. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. Keen, Paul. (2012). Literature, Commerce, and the Spectacle of Modernity, 1750-1800. Cambridge University Press. pp. 194-195. ISBN 978-1-107-01667-5

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Corry, John". Dictionary of National Biography 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.