Rev. Richard Varick Dey, II

Author: Dey, Richard Varick

Biography:
Dey, Richard Varick (1801-37: WBIS)

pseudonym Uriah Derick D'Arcy

Richard Varick Dey is the most likely candidate for authorship of the works published under the anagram of his name in 1819--a Gothic novel and two magazine poems--but he is not the only one. As Bray explains, the Knickerbocker magazine attributed the novel to "Robert C. Sands" when it reprinted parts of it in 1845. Dey was the son of a New York attorney, Anthony Dey, and his wife Catharine (Laidlie) Dey. He graduated from Columbia in 1818 and from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1822. In 1822 he married Lavinia Agnes Scott of New Brunswick; four of their seven children survived their father. He was a minister in several churches, among them a Congregational Church in Greenfield Hill CT and the Reformed Church on Vandewater St. in New York. Under his own name, he later published sermons and a Christian magazine, the Olla podrida (1834-). (Katie Bray, "A Climate . . . more Prolific . . . in Sorcery," American Literature 87 [2015] 1-21 n 4; ancestry.com 3 Sept. 2018)

Books written (2):
The Black Vampyre: A Legend of St. Domingo.
New York: [no publisher: printed "for the author"], 1819
The Black Vampyre; a Legend of St. Domingo.
2nd edn. New York: printed for the author, 1819

• Note: Find a Grave has birth date as 22 Feb, 1801. The Ancestry.com profile has his birth identical to his brother Archibald as 11 Jan, 1801. Several My Heritage sources show Archibald's birth as 22 Feb, 1801. The two must have been twins and whoever composed the sources may have mis-struck a 2 for 1 or 1 for 2 on the keyboard. Also of note: a reference is given to a baptism date of 22 Feb 1801!
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Jan 6 2024, 11:06:17 UTC
• Reference: [https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/112925930/richard-varick-dey?_g..... Find A Grave Memorial] - SmartCopy: Jan 6 2024, 11:07:39 UTC
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Jan 14 2024, 14:20:34 UTC schwartz