Green cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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For conditions, please view our photographs. A nice clean rare copy from the library gathered by the famous Cambridge Don, computer scientist, food and wine connoisseur, Jack Arnold LANG.

Handy Andy is the most enduringly popular of the novels of Samuel Lover, author, artist and musician. The laughing philosopher of the story is Andy Rooney, a fellow who had ‘the most singularly ingenious knack of doing everything the wrong way. More than simply a comic novel, it has been described as a ‘pill to purge melancholy’. Lover may be equally remembered as a painter, most notably for his miniature portrait of Paganini, and for his many ballads. There is a wonderful musicality in the language which, combined with the accomplished artist’s eye for composition, makes this comic tale of Irish Life a volume to treasure.

Samuel Lover (24 February 1797 – 6 July 1868), also known as “Ben Trovato” (“well invented”), was an Irish songwriter, composer and novelist, and a portrait painter, chiefly in miniatures. He was the grandfather of Victor Herbert. Lover died on 6 July 1868 in Saint Helier, Jersey. A memorial in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin marks his achievements: “Poet, painter, novelist and composer, who, in the exercise of a genius as distinguished in its versatility as in its power, by his pen and pencil illustrated so happily the characteristics of the peasantry of his country that his name will ever be honourably identified with Ireland.” In the 2013 computer game “BioShock Infinite”, the Lover piece “Saddle The Pony” (from Rory O’More), is heard in Battleship Bay, where Elizabeth is seen dancing to it. It is performed by an accordion player, a violinist and a pianist.