The author is the 19th century Anglo-Irish novelist Charles Lever. Once compared favorably to Dickens and extremely popular in the 1840's and 1850's, Lever's reputation suffered increasing criticism in the late 19th century and he is not well known today, and is sometimes in fact referred to as "The Lost Victorian". A unique view of the Victorian age from the Anglo-Irish point of view. Practicing medicine in Kilkee, Clare and Portstewart, he served under the Board of Health during the worst ravages of the cholera epidemic of 1832. This experience is reflected in this novels and in (originally published in 1845) and in The Martins of Cro' Martin (1856). "When I wrote it, I desired to inculcate the truth that prosperity has as many duties as adversity has sorrows."