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Who?
Mr Barry Kavanagh was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1739. He received a degree in English and philosophy from the old University College, Dublin in 1760, but was barred from further studies in natural philosophy because of his alchemical research into the elixir of life. During the 1760s he circumnavigated the globe aboard the Dolphin, the ship commanded by Foul-Weather Jack (the poet Byron's grandfather), and upon its return to Britain he was responsible for the tales of encounters with Patagonian giants that appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine and the London Chronicle. He worked for the celebrated 'electric medicine man' James Graham in the 1770s, then spent several decades pretending to work as an agent provocateur for and against various European powers and revolutionary organizations. This latter activity - whatever it was - mysteriously culminated in French financial support for the British scientist Sir David Brewster. This was in 1816, and upon receiving the money, Brewster immediately invented the kaleidoscope. Kavanagh began writing long prose fiction in 1856; his initial indifference to the art-form was altered by a chance encounter with the writer Gustave Flaubert in September 1851. Kavanagh's "novels" were never published, however, and this kept him out of the public eye, although until her death in 1865, he was a known protégé of Princess Caraboo, who famously masqueraded as a lower class servant with the unlikely name of Mary Baker. He was a lover of Thérèse Humbert in the 1870s and Cassie Chadwick in the early 1880s. He somehow re-emerged in public at the end of the twentieth century with the musical group Dacianos, who have released two mini-albums, Mis-showbusiness (2000) and Hold Music (2002), plus the compilation In a Weird Chalet 2004-2006. He lives in a secret Arctic hideout somewhere in Norway, and writes a blog about it, North. Photo by Harry Thuillier Jnr (1864-97). Note: a "hellshaw" is a three-toed marmoset, and it brings good luck. We're tired of being asked.
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