Here for the first time are gathered together the extant letters of George Faulkner, Irish printer in eighteenth-century Dublin. These firsthand accounts give an unprecedented view of Anglo-Irish social and political events, as well as a view of an Anglo-Irish printer-publisher at work.
Faulkner discusses a wide range of subjects, including theatrical events, attacks on political enemies (he himself was often the subject of political attack), and London parties with Lord Chesterfield, Tobias Smollet, and Samuel Johnson.
In his interesting sketch of the Irish printer, Robert E. Ward has included excerpts from Faulkner's Dublin Journal which show the ambiguity in Irish life—violence, on the one hand, and, on the other, light-hearted entertainment. Other articles from his newspaper show Faulkner's attempts to steer a neutral course between English and Irish politics.