Richard Ryan was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 biographer.

Ryan was son of Richard Ryan, a bookseller in Camden Town, who died before 1830, Ryan seems to have followed the business of a bookseller, but found time to write several interesting books, a few plays, and some songs which were set to music by eminent composers. His plays—Everybody's Husband, a comic drama in one act ; Quite at Home, a comic entertainment in one act ; and Le Pauvre Jacques, a vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

in one act, from the French—are printed in J. Cumberland's ' Acting Plays,' 1825.

Besides the works mentioned, he published:

• Eight Ballads on the Superstitions of the Irish Peasantry, 8vo, London, 1822.
• Biographia Hibernica, a Biographical Dictionary of the Worthies of Ireland, from the earliest periods to the present time, 2 vols. STO. London, 1819-21.
• 'Poems on Sacred Subjects, Sic., 8vo, London, 1824.
• Dramatic Table Talk, or Scenes, Situations, and Adventures, serious and comic, in Theatrical History and Biography, with engravings, 3 vols, limo, London, 1825.
• Poetry and Poets, being a Collection of the choicest Anecdotes relative to the Poets of every age and nation, illustrated by engravings, 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1826.

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