The person most responsible for making
Matt Talbot well known in Dublin and all of Ireland shortly after Matt's death
in 1925 was Sir Joseph A. Glynn.
A friend of Glynn's, who knew Matt for
25 years, suggested that Glynn write a short sketch of Matt's holy life for his
fellow Dublin workers, although Glynn had not previously heard of Matt Talbot.
Within months Glynn wrote a twenty page pamphlet titled, "Life of Matt
Talbot, a Dublin Labourer," which was published in 1926 by the Catholic Truth
Society of Ireland and sold 10,000 copies within four days.
Another edition was
published in 1927 which sold 120,000 copies within a few months. In 1928 the
first edition presumably in hardback with the title, Life of Matt
Talbot, was published and subsequent editions have been published, including
this 1942 edition that is available online at the link below. (These books have
long been out-of-print but do periodically appear for sale at amazon.com and
eBay at a reasonable price.)
Being the first biographer of Matt's
life so soon after his death, Glynn had the opportunity to interview many who
knew and worked with Matt. Later biographers regularly used
Glynn's editions for their own biographies. Mary Purcell's biographies, which
were first published in 1954 and benefited from interviews at the two official
Enquiries about Matt Talbot's holiness which opened in 1931 and again in 1948,
are the most definitive and result in some different conclusions about Matt than
does Glynn. Therefore, the serious student of Matt Talbot might begin by reading
Glynn's 1942 edition followed by Mary Purcell's Matt Talbot and His Times
(1977, American Edition) and her Remembering Matt Talbot
(1990).
Glynn's Life of Matt Talbot
is provided online courtesy of the University of Chicago and the Open Library
website established by The Internet Archive.
Either click the homepage at
http://www.archive.org/details/MN5135ucmf_8
and then click the flashing text to view the book to the left of your screen or
go directly to http://www.openlibrary.org/details/MN5135ucmf_8
to begin reading.
Click the right page to turn the pages forward or click the left page for
previous pages.