ABSTRACT
From all indications, one of Blackwood’s most famous characters, the Ensign Morgan Odoherty, was originally intended to be a rather short-lived creation. In fact, as seen earlier in this volume (pp. 33–42 above), Odoherty was presumably already dead when Thomas Hamilton introduced him to Blackwood’s readers in the February 1818 number. But so rich were the comic and poetic possibilities for this character that, a year after the announcement of his death, John Gibson Lockhart and David Macbeth Moir joined forces to effect the Adjutant’s resurrection.
