Qpb Book of Irish Literature

by Kathy Kiernan

New paperback.

Genres: Ireland, Irish Literature, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Thomas Keely]

There are not very many countries other than Ireland whose literature could command its own 960 -page-anthology. (And, indeed, this book easily could have been three times as long.) Four of Ireland’s writers have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature: W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney. Also indicative of the Irish passion and genius for words: they turn to the pen rather than the brush; the great Irish painters can be counted on one hand. The Quality Paperback Book Club editorial team felt the world needed a book that would do justice to the centuries of great Irish writing, and being lovers of Irish literature ourselves, we felt up to the task. With an abundance of Irish literary gems to choose from, it was painful to make selections here. We had to ask, how many plays can one anthology handle? How much poetry? Sometimes, we uncovered intriguing and unconventional pieces. The great playwright Sean O’Casey is represented here, for example, but with a short story; poet Louis MacNeice couldn’t be forgotten either, but we’ve chosen to represent his critical skills with a piece that reviews two books about James Joyce. Lord Dunsany’s greatest fame was as a playwright, but he also wrote wonderful short stories; we include “The Hashish Man.” Also somewhat surprising: many of the pieces here involve great Irish writers commenting on their fellow great Irish writers. Along with MacNeice on Joyce, we’ve got Beckett on Joyce, Flann O’Brien on Joyce, Shaw on Oscar Wilde, Austin Clarke on Jonathan Swift, and Thomas D’Arcy McGee on Thomas Moore. Even when individual selections are not specifically about an Irish writer, one or two are often mentioned within the pieces. (As is the complicated and bloody history of Ireland.) The Irish seem more self-referential than most. We have tried to represent the full range of genres Irish writers have mastered. There are three jail memoirs spanning one hundred years: John Mitchel’s Jail Journal, Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and Brendan Behan’s Borstal Boy. We’ve got science fiction and horror, too: respectively Fitz-James O’Brien’s “The Diamond Lens” and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” and the aforementioned story from Lord Dunsany, “The Hashish Man,” which strikes us as just plain weird. We have Irish folktales (but not too many; since these are anthologized elsewhere) and fiction by some of the most recently published Irish writers; Emer Martin, Patrick McCabe, Colum McCann, and Niall Williams. With one notable exception, the selections are arranged chronologically. We found that there are at least three Irish literary dynasties: the Sheridans, the Wildes, and the O’Faolains, and have grouped the writings of each family together. As much as American readers like the Irish, we don’t keep their books in pring. Borstal Boy, Ireland’s sixth-best-selling book of all time, is no longer available in the United States; you’ll find a sizable excerpt—almost half of it—here. Francis MacManus’s Fire in the Dust, a truly brilliant novel, is also out of print, as is the work of Mary Lavin, a master of the short story; Brian Moore’s early novels; James Joyce’s poetry; Sean O’Faolain’s collected stories; and Sean O’Casey’s fiction. Jail Journal, considered to be one of the greatest accounts of prison life, could be found only in the vaults of the New York Public Library, which is also where we finally located a copy of Frances Sheridan’s Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph. Other great rediscoveries here are Liam O’Flaherty, Benedict Kiely, and Patrick Kavanagh, all of whom were new to us, each of whom is shockingly good. And one more thing. The word “bog” appears in about half of the selection. What could be more Irish than that?
–QPB Book of Irish Literature. Introduction pp ix - x