illustre famille d’Irlande; et ornée de tout ce qui peut rendre une
lecture utile et agréable. (LA HAYE: _P. Poppy_). 1744.
A trans. of this under title _The Dean of Coleraine_. _A Moral
History founded on the Memoirs of an Illustrious Family in
Ireland_, was printed in London (Vol. I.) and Dubl. (Vols. II.
and III.) in 1742; another ed. 1780. The work was originally
publ. in Paris, 1735, and there were further editions in 1750,
1821 (six vols.), &c. The Author was a French abbé, and a very
voluminous author, having published upwards of 200 vols. There
is a selection of his works in 39 vols. in the Library of
T.C.D. His chief title to fame is the romance _Manon Lescaut_.
The present is a well written, though very long, story, showing
how the teller of the tale, the Dean or P.P. of Coleraine, in
Antrim, watched with more than a father’s anxious care over the
fortunes of his two half-brothers and sister. Their several
characters appear admirably in the telling, especially that of
the poor good Dean, unworldly, unselfish, deeply affectionate,
but over anxious and almost over conscientious. His efforts
to keep his wayward charges in the straight path amid the
allurements of Paris are very well told. There is nothing in
the least objectionable. There is an air of reality about the
whole, though the style is old-fashioned. Towards the close the
Dean acts as a Jacobite agent in Ireland.
=PURDON, K. F.= B. in Enfield, Co. Meath, and has always resided there.
Ed. at home, in England, and at Alexandra College, Dublin. Has written
much for Irish and English periodicals, her first encouragement coming
from the IRISH HOMESTEAD. She also owes much to the helpfulness of
Richard Whiteing, the well-known writer.
⸺ CANDLE AND CRIB. Pp. 42. 12mo. (_Maunsel_). 1_s._ Christmas, 1914.
Quietly but tastefully bound. Four good illustr. in colour by
Beatrice Elvery. An exquisite little Christmas idyll telling
of the strange way Art Moloney brought his new wife home to
Ardenoo for Christmas.
⸺ THE FOLK OF FURRY FARM. Pp. 315. (_Nisbet_). 6_s._ 1914.
A story of life at Ardenoo, somewhere in the Midlands,
depicting in the most intimate way the conversation, manners,
humours, kindliness of the people. Told as if by one of
themselves with the strange phraseology, the unexpected turns,
the often poetic figurativeness of the best shanachies. Miss
Purdon writes as one with close and accurate knowledge of the
home-life, at least in its outward aspects, of the small farmer
class to which the chief characters belong. The matrimonial
affairs of Michael Heffernan and his sharp-tongued sister Julia
are humorously told, and the Author is almost a specialist in
tramps. Pref. by “Geo. Birmingham,” giving a sketch of the
Irish Literary movement.
=QUIGLEY, Rev. Hugh; “A Missionary Priest.”= 1818-1883. B. in Co. Clare,
studied in Rome, and was there ordained for the American Mission. Was
Rector of the University of St. Mary, Chicago, but resigned and laboured
among the Chippewa Indians and among miners in California. Died in Troy,
N.Y.
⸺ THE CROSS AND SHAMROCK. Pp. 240. (_Duffy_). 2_s._ (N.Y.: _Benziger_).
0.60. Still in print. [1853].
Religious and moral instruction conveyed in the form of a story
of the trials and sufferings (amounting at times to martyrdom)
of a family of orphan children at the hands of various types
of proselytisers. A harsh and satirical tone is adopted
in speaking of American Protestantism. Incidentally there
are sidelights on several phases of American life, notably
rail-road construction. Full sub-t.:—“Or, how to defend the
faith, an Irish-American Catholic tale of real life descriptive
of the temptations, trials, sufferings, and triumphs of the
children of St. Patrick in the great republic of Washington.”
⸺ THE PROPHET OF THE RUINED ABBEY; or, A Glance of the Future of Ireland.
Pp. 247. (_Duffy_). 1863.
“A narrative founded on the ancient ‘Prophecies of Culmkill’
and on other predictions and popular traditions among the
Irish.”—(Title p.). To keep alive these traditions is the
Author’s first aim, his second “to keep alive and kindle in the
bosoms of the Irish Catholic people of this republic genuine
sentiments both of patriotism and religion.”—(Pref.). Fr. Senan
O’Donnell, under sentence of death in town of Cloughmore,
Co. Waterford, at the hands of the British Government, is
rescued by his brother. In the first part of the book there is
abundance of stirring incident, thrilling escapes, &c., but the
latter part becomes more wildly improbable and unreal as it
proceeds. Fr. Senan is wrecked off coast of Clare and lives for
years in a cave in cliffs of Moher with a little boy, rescued
from the eagles. Time: about 1750-1798. Bitterly anti-English
sentiment throughout. Only by an incident in the last few pages
are the title and sub-titles justified.
⸺ PROFIT AND LOSS; or, the Life of a Genteel Irish-American. Pp. 458.
(N.Y.: _T. O’Kane_). 1873.
Purpose: to teach Catholic piety and to guard youth from
danger. The genteel Irish-American is Michael Mulrooney, who
was driven out of Ireland by the tyranny of the landlord class.
The first twenty-five pp. tell us of his troubles in Ireland.
=QUINLAN, May.=
⸺ IN THE DEVIL’S ALLEY. Pp. 262. (_Art and Book Co._). 3_s._ 6_d._
Illustr. very cleverly and humorously by the Author. 1907.
Sketches of the lowest life in the East End of London, chiefly
among the poorest Irish. Told with sympathy, close observation,
and quiet humour. There is pathos too, but the Author never
strains it nor forces the note. _Sunt lachrimae rerum._
The Author is the dau. of Judge Quinlan, late of Victoria,
Australia.
=READ, Charles Anderson.= 1841-1878. Born near Sligo. Was for some
years a merchant in Rathfriland, Co. Down. Went to London, 1863. Was an
industrious and able writer, and a man full of enthusiastic admiration
for Ireland, its people, and its literature. Produced numerous sketches,
poems, short tales, and nine novels, the most notable of the latter being
_Love’s Service_; but better known are his _Aileen Aroon_ and _Savourneen
Dheelish_, of which the LONDON REVIEW said: “We are presented with a view
of agrarian crime in its most revolting aspect, and there is no false
glamour thrown around any of the characters. Many of the incidents are
highly dramatic, while the dialogue is bright and forcible.” The above
notice is taken from an article by Mr. Charles Gibbon in the _Cabinet of
Irish Literature_, edited by Mr. Read himself.
⸺ SAVOURNEEN DHEELISH; or, One True Heart. 16mo. (LONDON: _Henderson_),
1_s._ [1869]. 1874, 7th ed.
First appeared in THE WEEKLY BUDGET. A melodramatic but finely
told story. The principal incident is the historic tragedy
utilised by Carleton in his “Wild Goose Lodge.” Especially
thrilling is the scene where Kate Costelloe gives the evidence
which she knows will bring her brother and her lover to the
gallows. Barney Fegan, a jovial pedlar, plays a conspicuous
part. The usual devices of evictions, murders, Whiteboys,
traitors, trials, secret caves, &c. Scenery well described:
brogue well done. The fair at Keady is a noteworthy piece of
description. Scene: the district round Dundalk.
⸺ AILEEN AROON; or, The Pride of Clonmore. (LONDON: _Henderson_). 1_s._
[1870.]. Sixth ed. _n.d._
First appeared in THE WEEKLY BUDGET. Garratt O’Neill is
falsely accused of murder. His sweetheart Aileen on her way to
Downpatrick to defend him is abducted by his enemy. Suspected
of infidelity, she is driven from her home, but is befriended
by Father Nugent, an unfrocked priest, and his Fenian band, who
lurk in the Mourne Mountains. After many thrilling episodes and
hairbreadth escapes the lovers are united at last. Sensational
but well-told, and containing some good descriptions.
=READE, Amos.=
⸺ NORAH MORIARTY; or, Revelations of Irish Life. (_Blackwood_). Two Vols.
1886.
“A romance bound up with the story of the Land League, its
rise ... in 1880, its development, and the outrages and bitter
sufferings endured by the victims.”—(_Baker_).
=READE, Mrs. R. H.=
⸺ PUCK’S HALL. Pp. 254. (BELFAST: _Charles W. Olley_). 1889.
Scene: Newcastle, Co. Down. A pleasant story, told in a
straightforward way, with good characterisation. By the same
Author:—_Milly Davidson_, _Dora_, _Silver Mill_, &c.
=REED, Talbot Baines.=
⸺ SIR LUDAR. Pp. 343. (_R.T.S._). Seven illustr. by Alfred Pearse.
[1889]. Cheap reprints (_“Leisure Hour” Office_), 6_d._, 1910, and
(_Boys’ Own Paper_). 1913.
Adventures of an English ’prentice boy in company with Sir
Ludar, who is a son of Sorley Boy MacDonnell of Dunluce
Castle, Co. Antrim. There is a constant succession of exciting
incidents. The retaking of Dunluce from the English is the
most noteworthy. The heroes are on board the Armada during
its fight with the English. The tone is not anti-Irish, but
occasionally unfair to Catholics. It is a book for boys.
The Author (1852-1893) was a son of Sir Chas. Reed, M.P.,
F.S.A., Deputy Governor of the Irish Society, and nephew of
John Anderson, the Belfast bibliographer. He had a great love
for Ireland and her people, and always delighted in visiting
her shores.
⸺ KILGORMAN. Pp. 420. (_Nelson_). Six illustr. (good). 1906.
Scene: mainly in Donegal. Relates adventures of Donegal
fisherboy, first at home, then in Paris during Reign of
Terror, then at battle of Camperdown, then in Dublin, where he
frequents meetings of United Irishmen and meets Lord Edward.
Standpoint: not anti-Irish, but hostile to aims of United
Irishmen. Full of exciting adventure. Juv.
=REID, Forrest.=
⸺ THE BRACKNELS: a Family Chronicle. Pp. 304. (_Arnold_). 6_s._ 1911.
This unpleasant and, we hope, abnormal family is that
of a self-made Belfast merchant. The book is a study in
temperaments; Mr. Bracknel himself, a harsh man, with little
humanness, without affection, except a certain regard for an
illegitimate child of past days; the daughter Amy, in love with
Rusk, the tutor, and ready to go to any lengths to win him; the
wilful, selfish, elder son; above all, Denis, the youngest,
morbid, dreamy, the victim of delusions, engaging in strange
pagan worship, yet with amiable traits. There is not a trace of
religion in the chronicle of this family.
⸺ FOLLOWING DARKNESS. Pp. 320. (_Arnold_). 6_s._ 1912.
A soul study in form of autobiography. The hero is a son of
a Co. Down schoolmaster. He is brought up amid uncongenial
people and in uncongenial circumstances, first amid the Mourne
Mountains, then in sordid Cromac St., Belfast. His soul
sickens with the dreariness of the education, and especially
of the religion that is imposed on him, and the father, a
hard, unresponsive man, is perversely blind to the genius (an
artistic and somewhat moody temperament) and aspirations of the
young man—with consequences almost fatal. He is thrown back on
himself. Hence intense introspection and then an outlet sought
in occult sciences. There is a love story, too, but it is of
minor importance. The book is but a fragment, and has no real
conclusion. The style is exceptionally good.
⸺ AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE. Pp. 332. (_Arnold_). 6_s._ 1915.
“One needs no knowledge of Belfast and its people to appreciate
nine-tenths of what Mr. Reid here describes; there can be
no question that his characters are true to life: the small
family at the combined post office and lending library; the
hardworking, clean, and grim Mrs. Seawright, her two sons
Martin and Richard, her adopted daughter Grace ... all this one
thoroughly appreciates as one admires the sustained skill with
which in a succession of small strokes Mr. Reid builds up his
admirable story.”—(TIMES LIT. SUPPL.).
=RHYS, Grace.= “Mrs. Rhys (_née_ Little) was born at Knockadoo, Boyle,
Co. Roscommon, 1865. She is youngest daughter of J. Bennett Little, and
married, in 1891, Ernest Rhys, the poet.... Her novels deal with Irish
life, which she knows well, and are written with sympathetic insight,
tenderness, and tragic power.”—(IRISH LIT.).
⸺ MARY DOMINIC. Pp. 296. (_Dent_). 1898.
The main theme is the seduction of a young peasant girl by the
son of the landlord, and the nemesis that overtook the seducer
after many years. The story is told with exceptional power and
pathos. There is no prurient description, unless one half-page
might be objected to on this score. The peasants are natural
and life-like, but there is something strangely repellant
in the pictures of the upper classes. There are incidents
bringing out the darker aspects of the land-war. There is no
anti-religious bias.
⸺ THE WOOING OF SHEILA. (_Methuen_). 6_s._ [1901]. Second ed., 1908.
(N.Y.: _Holt_). 1.50.
A gentleman, from unnatural motives, deliberately brings up
his son as a common labourer. The boy falls in love with and
marries a peasant girl, whom he had saved from the pursuit of a
rascally young squire. On her marriage morning she learns that
her husband has killed her unworthy lover. She at once leaves
her husband, but a priest induces her to return, and the crime
is hushed up in a rather improbable manner. As in the Author’s
other books, there is a subtle charm of style, delicate
analysis of character, and fair knowledge of peasant life.
⸺ THE PRINCE OF LISNOVER. (_Methuen_). 1904.
Ireland in the early ’sixties. Has same qualities as _Mary
Dominic_. Devotion of the people to the old and dispossessed
“lord of the soil” is touchingly brought out. A pretty
girl-and-boy love story runs through the whole.
⸺ THE CHARMING OF ESTERCEL. Pp. 318. (_Dent_). 6_s._ 1913.
A love story of Ireland in the days of O’Neill and Essex. The
main interest lies in the story of how Estercel is brought to
love his cousin Sabia, and in the adventures of the former,
an O’Neill and the envoy of the great Hugh, in Dublin and in
Ulster. But the historical background is well painted and the
historical personages carefully studied. The hero’s wonderful
horse, Tamburlaine, is a strange and original “character”
in the piece, and there is a splendid description of how he
carried his master from Dublin home to the North. The Author
writes with sympathy for Ireland. The charm of the style
is enhanced by her sympathy with wild nature and delicate
perception of its sights and sounds.
=RHYS, Rt. Hon. Sir John, M.A., D.Litt.= B. Cardiganshire, 1840. Ed.
Bangor and Oxford. Also at the Sorbonne, College de France, Heidelberg,
Leipsic, and Göttingen. Prof. of Celtic at Oxford since 1877. Member of
innumerable learned societies and royal commissions. He has read many
valuable papers on Celtic subjects before the R.I.A. Publ. a long series
of works on Celtic subjects, _e.g._, _Celtic Heathendom_, 1886.
⸺ CELTIC FOLK-LORE, Welsh and Manx. Two Vols. Pp. xlvi. + 718. (OXFORD:
_Clarendon Press_). 10_s._ 1901.
Stories gathered partly by letter, partly _viva voce_,
classified and critically discussed. The group of ideas, he
concludes, connected with the fairies is drawn partly from
history and fact, partly from the world of imagination and
myth, the former part representing vague traditions of earlier
races. Many subsidiary questions are raised, _e.g._, magic, the
origin of druidism, certain aspects of the Arthurian legends,
&c. Ch. x. deals with Difficulties of the Folk-lorist; Ch. xi.
with Folk-lore Philosophy; Ch. xii. with Race in Folk-lore and
Myth. Throughout constant references are made to and frequent
parallels drawn with Irish folk-lore, _e.g._, the Cuchulainn
cycle.
=RIDDELL, Mrs.= _née_ =Charlotte E. Cowan=. Born at Carrickfergus,
1832. Published her first book 1858, since when she has written nearly
forty novels. All of these are remarkably clever, and some have been
very popular. They deal chiefly with social and domestic life among
the Protestant upper and middle classes. The scene is laid in London,
Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Scotland, &c. Few deal with Ireland. We may
mention _George Geith of Fen Court_ (1864), _City and Suburb_ (1861),
_A Life’s Assize_ (1870), _Above Suspicion_ (1875), _Too Much Alone_,
_Susan Drummond_, _Race for Wealth_, _Head of the Firm_. Her books are
noteworthy for the intimate knowledge of the proceedings of law and the
business world of London which they display. D. 1906.
⸺ MAXWELL DREWITT. [1865]. New illustr. ed., 1869. (_Arnold_).
A rather lengthy but well-told tale of adventures in Connemara,
including an old-fashioned election (time, 1854) and a
well-described trial for robbery on the Drogheda and Dundalk
Railway. The plot is well constructed and the characters,
mainly of the landlord class, sympathetically depicted. The
peasantry are faithfully, if somewhat humorously, delineated.
Dr. Sheen, the dispensary doctor, and his patients are well
pourtrayed.
⸺ A STRUGGLE FOR FAME. 1883. Several eds.
Partly autobiographical. Describes a young girl and her father
sailing from Belfast with her MS. to win her way in London. Her
experiences of publishers and love affairs.
⸺ BERNA BOYLE. Pp. 443. (_Macmillan_). 6_s._ [1884]. 1900, &c.
A love story of the Co. Down about fifty years ago. Deals
mainly with the trials of a young lady, who suffers much from
suitors with disagreeable relatives. The characters are mainly
drawn from a rather uninspiring and unsympathetic type of
Ulster folk. Perhaps the most striking feature is the character
of Berna’s mother, a vulgar, pushful, foolish woman. There is
humour not a little in the situations and characters. The story
suffers from its great length.
⸺ THE BANSHEE’S WARNING, and Other Tales. (LONDON: _Macqueen_). 6_d._
Paper. 1903.
Six stories, four having some concern with Ireland. The first
tells how the Banshee goes to London to warn the scapegrace
son of an Irish family, who is a clever surgeon, yet always
plunged in debt. It is a study of a strange personality. “A
Vagrant Digestion” humorously relates the journeyings of the
hypochondriacal Vicar of Rathdundrum in search of health.
“Mr. Mabbot’s Fright” and “So Near, or the Pity of It” both
illustrate the honesty and the proper pride of the Irish. The
latter is pathetic. The former is humorous, is full of life and
movement, and contains fine descriptions of the coast-drive
from Belfast to Larne in the old days, and of an exciting
run-away.
=RIDDALL, Walter.=
⸺ HUSBAND AND LOVER. Pp. 304. (_Swift_). 6_s._ 1913.
The love affairs of a London journalist who comes to Ireland,
marries Doris, and makes love to Laura.—(T. LIT. SUPPL.). The
Author, who was the second son of the late Dean Riddall of
Belfast, died in 1913, at the age of forty.
=“RITA”; Mrs. Desmond Humphreys.= Author of a great many novels: Mudie’s
list enumerates 58, amongst them _Peg the Rake_ and _Kitty the Rag_,
both introducing Irish elements, and _The Masqueraders_ describing the
wanderings and social experiences of two Irish singers.
⸺ THE SIN OF JASPER STANDISH. Pp. 342. (_Constable_). 1901.
Scene: one of the midland counties. The story is founded on
the Newtonstewart, Co. Tyrone, tragedy, where a scoundrelly
inspector of police murders the local bank-manager, then
himself conducts the investigation, but is unmasked and brought
to justice by the English heroine and her housekeeper. A
morbid and sensational type of book, with not a few traces
of religious and national bias. The English characters are
belauded, the Irish for the most part represented as fools.
There is much “stage-Irish” dialogue.
⸺ A GREY LIFE. Pp. 347. (_Stanley Paul_). 6_s._ 1913.
Scene: a boarding-house in Bath kept by three reduced ladies,
with whom Rosaleen O’Hara passes (in the later 1870’s) the
three or four years covered by the story. The central figure is
the Chevalier Theophrastus O’Shaughnessy, a charming, scholarly
man, with sad stories of his past to tell.
=ROBINSON, F. Mabel.=
⸺ THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. Two Vols. (_Vizetelly_). 1888.
Scene: Dublin, except for a chapter at Dromore and a visit to
London. Deals with the famous agrarian “Plan of Campaign” in
the eighties, viewed with Nationalist sympathies. Religion
is not discussed. A number of men and women of the educated
classes meet to talk politics. They go to see evictions, and
vivid but heartrending pictures of these are drawn. A bad
landlord is killed by a gentleman named Considine. The latter’s
friend, Talbot, helps him to escape, but his daughter Stella
dies of grief. Considine, who is an unbeliever, shoots himself.
The story is a good one and skilfully worked out.
=ROCHE, Hon. Alexis.=
⸺ JOURNEYINGS WITH JERRY THE JARVEY. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ 1915.
Two of these sketches first appeared in the CORNHILL. “One
of the most mirth-provoking collection of sketches that has
appeared for many a long day. There is a laugh in every page
and a roar in every chapter. Yet it is all pure comedy:
only once does the Author descend to farce.... a delightful
book.”—(I.B.L.). The Author, son of 1st Baron Fermoy, was born
in 1853, and died in 1915.
=ROCHE, Regina Maria.= 1765-1845. A once celebrated novelist. For many
years before her death she lived in retirement at Waterford. Wrote also
_The Vicar of Lansdowne_ (1793), _Maid of the Hamlet_, _The Monastery of
St. Columba_, &c., &c.
⸺ THE CHILDREN OF THE ABBEY. Four Vols. 12 mo. [1798]. (_Mason_). Twelfth
ed., 1835; others 1863, 1867.
A sentimental story of a very old-fashioned type. The
personages are chiefly earls and marquises, the heroines have
names like Amanda, Malvina, &c. Though in this novel Irish
places (Enniskillen, Dublin, Bray) are mentioned, the book does
not seem to picture any reality of Irish life. This is still
on Mudie’s list. It was republ. in U.S.A. at Hartford, Exeter,
Philadelphia, and N.Y.
⸺ THE MUNSTER COTTAGE BOY. Four Vols. Pp. 1195. (LONDON: _Newman_). 1820.
A little girl, Fidelia, grows up without knowing who her
parents are. Bad people try to exploit her: a servant named
Connolly tries to save her, but she falls from one misfortune
into another, till finally she meets her father, and finds
herself an heiress. Interminable conversations and intricacies
of episode. A multitude of characters, who are for the most
part English in Ireland. No humour, nor style.
⸺ THE BRIDAL OF DUNAMORE. Pp. 888. (LONDON: _Newman_). 1823.
A character study of Rosalind Glenmorlie, beautiful but haughty
and ambitious, and of the misery she caused to many and finally
to herself. It is tragedy almost all through. The scene in
“Dunamore,” on E. coast of Ireland. The character of the
heroine is overdrawn and exaggerated, like most of the Author’s
_dramatis personæ_.
⸺ THE TRADITION OF THE CASTLE; or, Scenes in the Emerald Isle. Four Vols.
Pp. 1414. 1824.
A very long story, with a multitude of characters. The aim
seems to be to plead that Irishmen should reside in their
own country and work for its welfare. Scenery of Howth,
Artoir-na-Greine, a place near Dublin, and Killarney. Dialect
good. No discussion of religious matters, but a good deal
of politics. The story opens during last session of Irish
Parliament, and, in a discussion between husband and wife, the
Author’s nationalist sentiments appear. Donoghue O’Brien, the
hero, is long kept apart from his Eveleen Erin, but they are
united in the end.
⸺ THE CASTLE CHAPEL. Three Vols. Pp. 963. (LONDON: _Newman_). 1825.
A story of a family of O’Neills of St. Doulagh’s Castle,
somewhere in Ulster, early nineteenth century. Eugene falls
in love with Rose Cormack, his sister’s companion, and they
make vows of marriage in the chapel by moonlight. Eugene,
who dabbles in phrenology and seems somewhat of a fool, goes
away. On his return he is told that Rose has been killed in an
accident. In reality she has been taken away by her father,
a Mr. Mordaunt, former owner of the castle, who has poisoned
his wife. Rose becomes an heiress, dies abroad, and leaves her
fortune to the O’Neills, and an apology for her duplicity. A
queer, outlandish sort of story.
=ROCHFORT, Edith.=
⸺ THE LLOYDS OF BALLYMORE. Two Vols. (_Chapman & Hall_). 1890.
A domestic story, told with simplicity and feeling. The Lloyds
belong to the Protestant landlord class, as do most of the
personages in the tale. Period: 1881: the Land League days.
Scene: the Midlands and afterwards Dublin. The first part of
the plot turns on the agrarian murder of Mr. Lloyd, the trial,
and execution of the murderer; the second on Tom Lloyd’s being
suspected of a bank-robbery when the Lloyds are living in very
straitened circumstances. All through runs a delicately told
and very sympathetic love story. The land question is viewed
from the landlord standpoint, but discussed without excessive
bitterness. Conversations natural and peasant dialect good.
=RODENBERG, Julius.=
⸺ DIE HARFE VON IRLAND: Märchen und dichtung in Irland. Pp. 299. 16mo.
(LEIPZIG: _Grunow_). 1861.
Contains:—I. Thirteen Irish melodies, with music. II. Tales.
III. Poems and songs transl. into German verse. At the end
are useful notes, and at p. 283 a list of sources. These are
chiefly the DUBLIN AND LONDON MAGAZINE for 1825-7. Two are
given as “mündlich” (gathered orally). Titles such as:—The
land in the sea, the wizard of Crunnaan, two stories of the
Leprechaun, the land of the ever young (Tír na n-óg), the fairy
handkerchief of the Phuka, the fair Nora, &c.
=ROGERS, R. D.=
⸺ THE ADVENTURES OF ST. KEVIN, and Other Irish Tales. (_Swan
Sonnenschein_). Pp. 266. [1897]. 1907.
A dozen humorous sketches, well told, giving the old legends
in a modern comic setting, much in the vein of Edmund Downey’s
_Through Green Glasses_. The brogue is faithfully rendered.
=ROLLESTON, T. W.= B. 1857, at Shinrone, King’s Co. His father was County
Court Judge for Tipperary. Ed. St. Columba’s, Rathfarnham, and T.C.D.
Lived some years on the Continent, but has since lived alternately in
London and in Dublin. Has written much verse. Also several literary,
philosophical, and biographical works. Was the first secretary of the
Irish Literary Society, London.
⸺ MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC RACE. Pp. ix. + 457. (_Harrap_). 7_s._
6_d._ Sixty-four full-page illustr. by Stephen Reid—excellent. (N.Y.:
_Crowell_). 2.50. 1911.
A very handsome volume, beautifully printed and bound.
Contents:—1. The Celts in ancient history. 2. The religion of
the Celts. 3. The Irish invasion myths. 4. The early Milesian
kings. 5. Tales of the Ultonian cycle. 6. Tales of the Ossianic
cycle. 7. The voyage of Maeldun. 8. Myths and Tales of the
Cymry. Elaborate Glossary and Index. From about p. 106 onwards
the legends, sagas, &c., are not simply discussed but told as
stories. The résumé of early Celtic history, with the customs,
art, religion, and influence of the race, is very valuable; but
the main interest lies in his complete survey of the cycles of
Irish myth and legend. The editor claims that he has “avoided
any adaptation of the material for the popular taste.” Some
very unfortunate (to say the least) remarks about religion (see
pp. 47 and 66) might well have been omitted.
⸺ THE HIGH DEEDS OF FINN, and Other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland.
Pp. lv. + 214. (_Harrap_). 5_s._ Sixteen illustr. by Stephen Reid. (N.Y.:
_Crowell_). 1.50. 1910.
Introduction long, but very interesting, by the well-known man
of letters (author of nearly thirty volumes), Rev. Stopford
Brooke. Deals with the relationships and contrasts between the
various cycles of Irish bardic literature and their several
characteristics—and this in a style full of literary charm. The
stories told by Mr. Rolleston (than whom few more competent
could be found for the work) are re-tellings in a style
graceful and poetic, but simple and direct, of ancient Gaelic
romances, some already told in English elsewhere, others now
first appearing in an English dress. They are drawn from all
three cycles above mentioned. Source for each mentioned at end
of book. Some of these tales are already well known, such as
Oisin in the Land of Youth, and the Children of Lir. The style,
it may be added, has not the fire and the dramatic force of
Standish O’Grady, but it has good qualities of its own.
=ROONEY, Miss Teresa J.; “Eblana.”= B. 1840. D. in 1911.
⸺ THE LAST MONARCH OF TARA. Pp. 311. (_Gill_). 2_s._ [1880]. (N.Y.:
_Benziger_). 0.80. 1889, &c.
Period: reigns of Tuathal and Diarmaid O Cearbhail. Scene:
chiefly the district around Tara. Aims to present a detailed
picture of the daily life and civilization of Ireland at
the time. Chief events: the murder of Tuathal, the judgment
of Diarmaid against Columbkille, followed by the battle
of Cooldrevne, and finally the Cursing and Abandonment of
Tara. The story is slight and moves slowly; there is no love
interest. The historical events are not all, perhaps, very
certain, but the author has brought very great industry and
erudition (from the best sources) to the portrayal of the life
of the time. The edition (of 1889) was revised and corrected by
Canon U. J. Bourke, M.R.I.A., and is admirably produced.
⸺ EILY O’HARTIGAN, an Irish-American Tale. (_Sealy, Bryers_). 2_s._ 1889.
Time of the Volunteers. Chief incidents in tale: Battle of
Bunker’s Hill, and Irish Declaration of Independence in 1782.
A disagreeable person of the name of Buck Fox (the name under
which the story originally appeared) takes up quite too large
a space in this book; and he and his friends, with their
_soi-disant_ English accents, are most decided bores. The point
of view is strongly national.—(I.M.).
⸺ THE STRIKE. (_Sealy, Bryers_). 6_d._ 1909.
“A stirring tale of Dublin in the eighteenth century, when
Ireland stood well ahead in industrial activity, and the Dublin
Liberties were the hub of Irish Industrialism.”
=RORISON, E. S.=
⸺ A TASTE OF QUALITY. Pp. 319. (_Long_). 6_s._ 1904.
Family life among Protestant upper middle class folk in a
country district—very pleasant and refined society. A kindly,
human story, eminently true to life, without bias of any
kind. One becomes quite familiar with the cleverly-drawn
characters—the kindly, cultured Archdeacon and his sister;
patient, crippled Larry, with his cheery slang; devoted Auntie
Nell, bringing comfort and brightness where she goes; the
Austrian countess; and the twins.
=ROSSA, Jeremiah O’Donovan.=
⸺ EDWARD O’DONNELL: a Story of Ireland of Our Day. Pp. 300. (N.Y.:
_Green_). 1884.
Scene somewhere near Fethard, Co. Tipperary, during Land League
agitation. The Author’s sympathies are against the L.L. and for
the physical force party, often called dynamiters at the time.
The book is full of the agrarian question, viewed with bitterly
anti-landlord bias. Eviction scenes, boycotting, midnight
conspiracy. Satirical portrait of the pious landlord—Catholic
attorney who battens on the miseries of the poor; also of
various landlord types. In the case of “Father Tim” the
portraits shows all the weak spots, but without bitterness
or disrespect. See ch. 18, Fr. Tim’s sermon against the
dynamiters. Good picture of a dispensary doctor’s life and
difficulties. Well written, but rather a pamphlet than a story.
It is believed in many quarters that Rossa did not write a word
of this story;[12] the edition I examined has on the title-page
what purports to be a facsimile of Rossa’s signature. Rossa
was b. in Rosscarbery, Co. Cork, 1831. Died in U.S.A., 1915,
and was given a public funeral in Dublin. He was a well known
Fenian leader, was condemned for treason-felony in 1865, and
sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, but was subsequently
released and went to New York, where he edited THE UNITED
IRISHMAN.
[12] In a contribution to I.B.L. for Sept., 1915, Mr. Edmund Downey
unhesitatingly assigns the book to the late Edward Moran, brother of the
present Ed. of THE LEADER.
=RUFFIN, Mrs. M. E. HENRY-=, _see_ =HENRY-RUFFIN=.
=RUSSELL, Maud M.=
⸺ SPRIGS OF SHAMROCK; or, Irish Sketches and Legends. Pp. 134. (_Browne &
Nolan_). 6_d._ 1900.
“The little books show how full of charm and fascination the
holiday resorts of Ireland really are.”—(LADY’S PICTORIAL).
=RUSSELL, T. O’Neill; “Reginald Tierney.”= B. near Moate, Co. Westmeath,
1828. Son of Joseph Russell, a Quaker. Was devoted from about 1858 till
the end of his life to the revival of the Irish language. During the
Fenian movement he was an object of suspicion. He emigrated, and spent
thirty years in U.S.A. Returning in 1895, he threw himself heart and soul
into the Gaelic Revival. D. 1908.
⸺ TRUE HEART’S TRIALS. (_Gill_). 1_s._ and 1_s._ 6_d._ Still in print,
1910.
A rather rambling tale of the troubles of a pair of lovers.
Scene: first, the Lake district of Cavan and Westmeath, where
we have a glimpse of squireen life. Afterwards the backwoods
north of Albany, U.S.A. Both light and shade of American
colonist life depicted. There are many laughable episodes in
the book.
⸺ DICK MASSEY. Pp. 300. (_Gill_). 1_s._ 1860. New ed., poor print, 1908.
Famine in 1814 and following years, as background for a story
full of incident, humour, and pathos, with faithful pictures
of many sides of Irish life—the emigrant ship, a wedding,
relations of good and bad landlords with tenants. Altogether on
the side of the peasant. Original title:—_The Struggles of Dick
Massey; or, the battles of a boy_, by “Reginald Tierney.”
=RUSSELL, Violet.= Is the wife of George Russell, “A.E.,” Ed. of the
IRISH HOMESTEAD and a well-known poet.
⸺ HEROES OF THE DAWN. Pp. 251. (_Maunsel_). 5_s._ Sixteen black and white
drawings and four coloured illustr. by Beatrice Elvery. _n.d._ [1913].
Stories of the Fionn cycle, drawn from Standish O’Grady’s
_Silva Gadelica_ and from the _Transactions of the Ossianic
Society_, and retold, with a pleasant simplicity and
directness, for children. “I would have you see in them,” says
the dedication, “a record of some qualities which the heroes
of ancient times held to be of far greater worth than anything
else—an absolute truthfulness and courtesy in thought and
speech and action; a nobility and chivalry of mind, &c....” But
the Author leaves the reader to draw his own moral and does not
force it on him. The illustrations are charming, and the whole
book is produced with great artistic taste.
=RYAN, W. P.=, _see also_ =O’RYAN, W. P.=
⸺ THE HEART OF TIPPERARY. Pp. 256. (_Ward & Downey_). 1893.
A romance of the Land League, but not too much taken up with
politics. Nationalist. Introd. by William O’Brien, M.P.
⸺ STARLIGHT THROUGH THE ROOF. Pp. 240. (_Downey_). 1895. Under pseudonym
“Kevin Kennedy.”
Scene: an inland village of Munster (presumably in Co.
Tipperary). A tale of peasant life—Utopian reforms realized by
a returned emigrant, opposed by land agents and a landlord’s
priest; partial conversion of the latter to the people’s side;
arrest of reformer on false charge of murder; breaking open of
prison, and rescue, &c. An early and crude effort in fiction.
Pleasant, emotional style. Very strong Nationalist bias.
=“RATHKYLE, M. A.”=
⸺ FAREWELL TO GARRYMORE. Pp. 127. (_Sealy, Bryers_). 1_s._ net. 1912.
A simple little tale of life in an Irish village, showing
knowledge of the country-folk and of their ways of thought and
speech; also a thorough understanding of children. The Author
is Miss M. Younge, of Upper Oldtown, Rathdowney.
=SADLIER, Mrs. James=,[13] _née_ =Madden=. Born at Cootehill, 1820. D.
1903. In 1844 she went to Canada, where the rest of her life was spent.
Between 1847 and 1874 she wrote frequently for the principal Catholic
papers in America. In 1895 she received the Laetare Medal. “Each of her
works of fiction had a special object in view, bearing on the moral
and religious well-being of her fellow Irish Catholics.” She says: “It
is needless to say that all my writings are dedicated to the one grand
object: the illustration of our holy Faith by means of tales or stories.”
Her sympathies are strongly nationalist. Besides the books here noticed,
she also published _The Red Hand of Ulster_, and a large number of
religious works. Flynn of Boston publishes a uniform ed. of her works at
0.60 each vol. Many of them were, naturally, originally published by the
firm of her husband, James Sadlier.
[13] _i.e._, Mary A. Sadlier, to be carefully distinguished from Anna T.
Sadlier, her daughter, born in Montreal. The latter has written nearly as
much as her mother, but her works are not concerned with Ireland.
⸺ THE FATE OF FATHER SHEEHY. Pp. 178 + appendix 76. (_Duffy_). 1_s._
6_d._ Still in print. [_c._ 1845]. (N.Y.: _Benziger_). 0.60.
The story (true, though told in form of fiction) of how the
heroic patriot-priest was judicially murdered at Clonmel in
1766 by the ascendancy faction, backed by the Government.
Appendix by Dr. R. R. Madden, giving full details of the trial,
depositions of witnesses, &c.
⸺ WILLY BURKE. Pp. 224. (_Duffy_). 1_s._ 6_d._ [_c._ 1850]. In print,
1909.
Story of two Irish emigrant boys left orphans in the States,
and their struggles with temptations against their Faith. One
is a model boy; the other goes off the track, but is brought
back again. A moral and religious story, full of Catholic faith
and feeling. It might, however, be not unreasonably considered
somewhat “goody-goody.”
⸺ NEW LIGHTS; or, Life in Galway. Pp. 443. (N.Y.: _Sadlier_). [1853].
Peasant life in Famine times. Written with a strong sympathy
for the sufferings of the people, and with admiration for
their virtues. There is a good deal about the proselytism
or “souperism” that was rife at the time. The evils of
landlordism, resulting in evictions, &c., are depicted. There
is no love interest.
⸺ THE BLAKES AND FLANAGANS. Pp. 391. (N.Y.: _Kenedy_). 60 cents. net; and
(_Duffy_) 2_s._ 6_d._ [1855]. 1909.
Life among lower middle class Irish in New York, showing
in a somewhat satirical way, evil effects of public school
education. The moral purpose, though fairly evident, does not
detract from the naturalness of the story. The conversation is
particularly lifelike.
⸺ THE CONFEDERATE CHIEFTAINS. Pp. 384. Demy 8vo. (_Gill_). 4_s._ Many
editions. [1859]. Still in print. (N.Y.: _Benziger_). 0.60 net.
A romance of a popular kind, without great literary
pretensions, giving a good picture of the events of the time,
written from a Catholic standpoint, and sympathising with
the Old Irish party led by O’Neill, who is the hero of the
tale. All the chief men of the various parties figure in the
narrative. Full expression is given to the Author’s sympathies
and dislikes, yet without, we believe, historic unfairness.
⸺ BESSY CONWAY; or, The Irish Girl in America. Pp. 316. (N.Y.: _Kenedy_).
60 cents. net. Print rather poor. _n.d._ [1861].
Theme of story: influence of religion on character. Object
(as stated in Pref.): to point out to Irish girls in America
(especially servants) “the true and never-failing path to
success in this life, and happiness in the next.” Bessy,
daughter of Tipperary farmer, leaves for America. She finds
when on board that Henry Herbert, son of her father’s landlord,
a Protestant, is without encouragement from her, following her
through love. The story tells how a change came over the wild
young man, how he became a Catholic, and married Bessy; how
the two of them made their fortunes in N. Y., and how Bessy
came home just in time to stop the eviction of her father in
the Famine year. Readable, with touches both of humour and of
pathos. Highly moral and religious in tone.
⸺ THE RED HAND OF ULSTER; or, the Fortunes of Hugh O’Neill. (LONDON and
DUBLIN), _c._ 1862.
Mentioned in most lists of this Author’s works, but not in
British Museum Library.
⸺ THE HERMIT OF THE ROCK. Pp. 320. (_Gill_). 2_s._ 6_d._ _n.d._ [1863].
In print.
Story of Irish society in the ’sixties. The “hermit,” who
tends the graves and monuments on the Rock of Cashel, is a
sort of Irish “Old Mortality,” and is a storehouse of legend
and tradition. The story is by no means a tame one: there is
a murder mystery, and sensation, though the latter does not
degenerate into melodrama.
⸺ THE DAUGHTER OF TYRCONNELL: a Tale of the Reign of James I. Pp. 160.
(_Duffy_), 1_s._ (N.Y.: _Kenedy_). 60 cents, net. [1863]. Still in print.
Sufferings of Mary O’Donnell, daughter of the exiled Earl of
Tyrconnell, at the hands of James I., who adopted her and
wished her to marry a Protestant. She dresses as a man and
escapes to the Continent, where she enters a convent. Founded
on a tradition recorded in MacGeoghegan’s _History of Ireland_.
James is painted in very dark colours; Mary is almost too good
for real life.
⸺ CON O’REGAN; or, Emigrant Life. Pp. 405. (N.Y.: _Kenedy_). 60 cents.
[1864]. 1909.
A powerful anti-emigration novel, depicting the hardships of
Irish emigrants in the New England states in the ’forties.
Thoroughly Catholic and sympathetic to the Irish, but does not
conceal their faults.
⸺ THE OLD HOUSE BY THE BOYNE. Pp. 319. (_Gill_). 2_s._ 6_d._ [1865]; also
(LONDON) 1888. New ed., 1904. (N.Y.: _Benziger_). 0.60.
Scene: Drogheda. Many descriptions of old historic spots, and
much legendary lore. There is a love interest, also, but the
book is hardly up to the Author’s usual standard. At the outset
of the book Drogheda is well described.
⸺ THE HEIRESS OF KILORGAN. Pp. vi. + 420. (N.Y.: _Kenedy_). 60 cents.
[1867]. New ed., 1909.
“A slight and very simple thread of fiction connects throughout
the series of historical sketches constituting these ‘Evenings
with the old Geraldines.’”—(Pref.). The plan is similar to
that of _Hibernian Nights Entertainments_ (Ferguson), _q.v._
At Kilorgan, near the Maigue, in Co. Limerick, dwell a poor
family of descendants of the Geraldines. They are visited by
an Englishman, who has (without their knowledge) bought the
old place in the courts. Every night of his stay a story is
told, the intervals being filled in by somewhat insipid love
episodes, long poems (by Mrs. Hernans, Longfellow, Gerald
Griffin, &c.), and songs. The stories are a series of episodes
from Geraldine history from Gerald FitzWalter in Wales to
the Sugán Earl, _c._ 1598, together with a few miscellaneous
romantic stories. They are simply and interestingly told. Some
are hardly for children. An Appendix gives some Geraldine
documents.
⸺ MACCARTHY MÓR. Pp. 277. (N.Y.: _Kenedy_). [1868]. At present in print.
_n.d._
Life and character of Florence MacCarthy Mór based on his _Life
and Letters_ by Daniel M’Carthy. M’Carthy is said by the Author
(Pref.) almost to merit the name of the Munster Machiavelli.
The book presents a striking picture of the struggles of the
great families of the day to preserve faith and property amid
the petty persecutions of the government and the intrigues of
rivals. Chief events introduced: battles of Pass of Plumes,
Curlew Mountains, and Bealanathabuidhe. Elizabeth, Cecil,
Burleigh, the Northern Earls, the “Sugán” Earl, Sir Henry
Power, &c., appear incidentally. The scene varies between
the Killarney district, West Carbery, the Council Chamber of
Elizabeth, and the Tower. The episode of the marriage of the
daughter of MacCarthy Mór to Florence MacCarthy Reagh forms the
theme of Miss Gaughan’s _The Plucking of the Lily_, _q.v._
⸺ MAUREEN DHU. Pp. 391. (N.Y.: _Sadlier_). [1869].
A tale of the Claddagh, the famous fishing village beside
Galway city. Its manners and ways are described in detail and
with fidelity. Tells how the beautiful daughter of the chief
fisherman is wooed and won from all competitors by a wealthy
young merchant of the city. The plot is well sustained and
interesting, though somewhat complicated and hampered by
digressions.
=SANBORN, Alvan Francis.=
⸺ MEG McINTYRE’S RAFFLE, and Other Stories. Two Vols. (BOSTON: _Small &
Maynard_). $1.25 each. 1896.
“Studies of the poorest classes in a great city, the pathos
often ghastly in its intensity. The title-story is an Irish
idyll.”—(_Baker_, 2).
=SAVAGE, Marmion W.= 1805-1872. B. Dublin. Ed. T.C.D. He was a government
official in Dublin for some years, and at that time wrote for DUBL.
UNIV. MAGAZINE. In 1856 he went to London, and there edited several
periodicals. He was a witty and clever novelist, very popular in his
day. Wrote also _Bachelor of the Albany_, _My Uncle the Curate_, _Reuben
Medlicott_, _A Woman of Business_.
⸺ THE FALCON FAMILY. (_Chapman & Hall_). [1845]. (_Ward, Lock_). New ed.,
1854.
“The best known and choicest of the author’s numerous
stories. It is intended as a satire on the leaders of the
Young Ireland Party; and some of the satire is very keen
and amusing, but as political pictures his sketches are no
better than caricatures.”—(_Read_). John Mitchel, reviewing
it (THE NATION, 13th Decr., 1845), calls it “another of those
pamphlet-novels that infest the literary world ... though
too obviously the production of an Irishman, is as obviously
intended and calculated for the English market.... We have had
some opportunities of acquaintance with the men the writer
attempts to satirize, and do unfeignedly declare that we have
never met (them).... In short, this book is a very paltry and
ill-conditioned performance.”
=SAVILE, Mrs. Helen.=
⸺ LOVE THE PLAYER. (_Sonnenschein_). 6_s._ 1899.
“A tragic plot, with sketches of Irish life, and unpleasant
specimens of humanity in the rector and rector’s wife in the
Protestant community of Tuleen. Old Micky Hogan, the sexton, is
depicted with humour.”—(_Baker_, 2). By the same Author: _The
Wings of the Morning_.
⸺ MICKY MOONEY, M.P. Pp. 250. (BRISTOL: _Arrowsmith_). Illustr. by Nancy
Ruxton. 1902.
Career of the hero from bog-trotter to M.P. As a background, a
vulgar and absurd caricature of Irish life. Humour throughout
of a very broad kind. Characters speak in an impossible brogue.
=SCHLICHTTRULL, Aline Von.=
⸺ DER AGITATOR VON IRLAND. Pp. 1043. (BERLIN: _Otto Janke_). 1859.
O’Connell is the hero, but there are a multitude of characters,
chiefly of the ruling classes. Politics are much discussed, the
Author’s sympathies being pretty clearly on the Catholic and
Nationalist side. Scene partly in Ireland, partly in England,
where the reader listens to speeches in the House of Lords.
=SCHOFIELD, Lily.=
⸺ ELIZABETH, BETSY, AND BESS. (_Duckworth_). 6_s._ 1912.
“The purport of the Author is to reveal the varied charm and
grace of a delightful Irish girl’s character between the
ages of thirteen and eighteen or so.... A vital, significant
portrait.”—(T. LITT. SUPPL.). Scene: partly at “Castlemorne,”
partly in a big English school near Liverpool.
=SCOTT, Florence, and HODGE, Alma.=
⸺ THE ROUND TOWER. Pp. 229. (_Nelson_). 1_s._ 6_d._ Pretty picture cover.
1906.
A very slight story centering in the landing of the French
at Killala in 1798. Adventures of two small English boys. An
interesting but one-sided glimpse of some of the episodes of
the time. For boys.
=SENIOR, Dorothy.=
⸺ THE CLUTCH OF CIRCUMSTANCES; or, The Gates of Dawn. Pp. 333. (_Black_).
Frontisp. 1908.
An Arthurian romance, with Finola, daughter of Cormac, King
of Leinster, as heroine. She is married to a brutal husband,
but in the end is united to her true love. Not, however,
without passing through a long series of adventures, rescues by
knights errant, escapes, &c. Has all the usual elements of the
romantic _chanson de geste_—tourneys, rose-gardens, adventures
in the green-wood. Told in highly romantic manner, but with
the romance is blended a curious element of the modern problem
novel.
=SEYMOUR, St. John D.=
⸺ IRISH WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY. Pp. 256. (_Hodges & Figgis_). 5_s._
net. 1914.
A very competent piece of work from a scientific point of view.
From the point of view of fiction it is full of weird and
uncanny stories, gleaned from all sorts of sources.
=SEYMOUR, St. John D., B.D., and HARRY L. NELIGAN, D.I., R.I.C.=
⸺ TRUE IRISH GHOST STORIES. (_Hodges & Figgis_). 3_s._ 6_d._ 1914.
Author says in Pref.: “For myself I cannot guarantee the
genuineness of a single incident in this book—how could I, as
none of them are my own personal experience. This at least
I _can_ vouch for, that the majority of the stories were
sent to me as first or second-hand experiences by ladies and
gentlemen whose statement on an ordinary matter of fact would
be accepted without question.” The names of some contributors
are mentioned. The stories are classified partly according to
locality, partly according to the type of ghost in question. A
final chapter gives a kind of Apologia for the book. Index of
place names. The telling is, perhaps, a little monotonous and
dull.
=SHAND, Alexander Innes.= 1832-1907. A Scotchman who interested himself
in the Irish land question and wrote _Letters from the West of Ireland,
1884_. Other novels of his were _Against Time_ and _Shooting the Rapids_.
⸺ KILCARRA. Three Vols. (_Blackwood_). 1891.
The influence of a good and sweet-natured woman on selfish men,
with the Land League agitation in Co. Galway for a background.
The peasantry are depicted as wild and lawless and mere tools
of the Land League, but as capable of much good. The shooting
of landlords is sheer barbarism, no attempt being made by
the Author to set forth its causes. The plot is furnished by
the efforts of the hero, Capt. Martin Neville, to trace the
murderer of a previous owner of the Kilcarra estate, and also
by the story of his love for his cousin Ida, or rather hers for
him. There is much about the relations between landlord and
tenant.
=SHARP, William=, _see_ =“FIONA MACLEOD.”=
=SHEEHAN, M. F.=
⸺ NEATH SUNNY SKIES: Stories of the Co. Waterford. Pp. 123. (_Waterford
News_). 6_d._ 1912.
A series of simple tales well told and true to life.
=SHEEHAN, Canon Patrick A., D.D.= B. 1852. Educated at St. Colman’s,
Fermoy, and Maynooth. Spent two years (1875-77) on English mission in
Devonshire. Parish Priest of Doneraile from 1895 till his death in
1913. His books deal chiefly with Catholic clerical life in Ireland—a
subject which he was the first to deal with from within. He brought to
bear on the features and problems of Irish life a deeply thoughtful and
cultured mind. He did not indulge in thoughtless panegyric of Irish
virtues, but touched firmly, though sympathetically, upon our national
shortcomings and failings. His ideals are of the loftiest, yet never of
an unsubstantial and airy, kind. His style is influenced too much perhaps
in his earlier books by his very wide reading in many literatures, but
particularly in Greek, German, Italian, and English. Besides the novels
mentioned here, he has published two books of studies and reflections,
viz., _Under the Cedars and the Stars_, and _Parerga_; also a book of
poems, _Cithara Mea_, and a selection of _Early Essays and Lectures_.
⸺ GEOFFREY AUSTIN, STUDENT. (_Gill_). 3_s._ 6_d._ Fifth ed., 1908.
Story of life in a secondary school, near Dublin, nominally
controlled by the clergy, but in reality left to the care of
a grinder of more than doubtful character. A most uncatholic
worldliness prevails at Mayfield, and the standards of conduct
and of religion are very low. Geoffrey’s faith is weakened and
well-nigh ruined. The curtain falls upon him as he goes out to
face the world, and we are left to conjecture his fate. Has
been transl. into French under title _Geoffroy_.
⸺ THE TRIUMPH OF FAILURE. Pp. 383. (_Burns & Oates_). [1899].
A sequel to the preceding. It is a close and sympathetic
soul-study. Geoffrey loses all his worldly hopes and falls
low indeed. He suffers the shipwreck of his faith. But in
this valley of humiliation he learns strength to rise and
conceives far different hopes, and we leave him on the heights
of atonement and of regeneration. The book is philosophic in
tone, and is enriched with many elevating thoughts from German,
French, and English moralists. It is said to have been the
Author’s favourite. It has been translated into many languages,
_e.g._, French, under title _Le succès dans l’échec_ (1906),
and German as _Der Erfolg des Misserfolgs_ (_Press of the
Missionaries of Steyl_), M. 6.
⸺ MY NEW CURATE. Pp. 480. (_Art and Book Co._). 6_s._ Eighteenth ed.
Eighteen rather poor illustr. [1899]. New ed. (_Longmans_), 2_s._ 6_d._
1914. (BOSTON: _Marlier_). 1.50.
Into a sleepy, backward, out-of-the-way parish comes a splendid
young priest, cultured, energetic, zealous, up-to-date. He
succeeds in many reforms, but the moral of the whole would seem
to be, “Nothing on earth can cure the inertia of Ireland,” or
rather, perhaps, “You cannot undo in a day the operations of
300 years.” The old parish priest tells the story. There is
in the book intimate sympathy with, and love of, the people,
their humours, and foibles, and virtues. There is plenty of
very humorous incident. Delightful moralizings, like those
in the Author’s _Under the Cedars and the Stars_. It is
full of undidactic lessons for both priests and people. The
religious life of the people is, of course, much dwelt on,
and a good deal of light is thrown on the private life of the
priests. Transl. into French (_Mon nouveau vicaire_), Dutch
(_Mijn nieuwe kapelaan_, by M. van Beek, 1904), German (_Mein
neuer Kaplan_, Bachem, M. 6.), Italian, Spanish (_Mi nuevo
coadjutor_, Herder), Hungarian, Slovene, Ruthenian.
⸺ LUKE DELMEGE. Pp. 580. (_Longmans_). 6_s._ 1901.
The life-story of a priest. The main theme of this great novel
is the setting forth of the spiritual ideals of the race and of
the heights of moral beauty and heroism to which these ideals
can lead. A strong contrast is drawn between the ideals which
the hero sees at work around him during his stay in England,
and those which he finds at work at home. Many phases and
incidents of Irish life are shown—the home-life of the priest,
the eviction, the funeral, scenes in Dublin churches, the
beauty of Irish landscape. One of the best, if not the best,
of Irish novels. Yet as a “problem” novel it is strangely
inconclusive. Luke seems to die with his life-questions
unanswered. Trans. into French, _Luke Delmege, âmes celtiques
et âmes saxonnes_; German, _Lukas Delmege_, trans. Ant. Lohr.
(_Habbel_), M. 6, 1906, sixth ed.; and Hungarian. Canon Sheehan
used to say of this book that its central idea was the doctrine
of vicarious atonement.
⸺ GLENANAAR. Pp. 321. (_Longmans_). 6_s._ [1905]. New ed., 1915. 2_s._
6_d._
“Tainted blood, inherited shame, is a terrible thing amongst a
people who attach supreme importance to these things.” This is,
perhaps, the central theme of the story. The narrative opens
in 1829 with the famous Doneraile Conspiracy trial in Cork,
when O’Connell, summoned in hot haste from Derrynane, was just
in time to save the lives of the innocent prisoners. The story
traces to the third generation the strange fortunes of the
descendants of one of the informers in this trial. There are
glimpses of the famine of ’48 and of the spirit of the men of
’67. The story of Nodlag is a touching and beautiful one, and
the episode of the returned American is very well done. Trans.
into German, _Das Christtagskind_ (STEYL: _Mission Press_), M.
2.50.
⸺ THE SPOILED PRIEST, and Other Stories. Pp. 213. (_Gill_ and _Burns &
Oates_). 5_s._ Nine illustr. by M. Healy. 1905.
Eight stories. The title-story gives a glimpse of the workings
of an ecclesiastical seminary, and also of the Irish peasants’
attitude towards a student who has been refused ordination.
“Remanded” is the story, founded on fact, of a hero-priest of
Cork. “The Monks of Trabolgan” is a curious, fanciful story of
Ireland at some future period. The remaining tales, “Rita, the
Street Singer,” “A Thorough Gentleman,” and “Frank Forest’s
Mince-Pie,” &c., do not deal with Ireland. Has been transl.
into German and Dutch.
⸺ LOST ANGEL OF A RUINED PARADISE. Pp. vi. + 168. (_Longmans_). 3_s._
6_d._
Three schoolgirls on leaving college take part in tableau as
_Parcae_ or Fates. They announce in make-believe the fates
of their companions. A mysterious voice from the audience
announces their own. The story tells how their fates worked
out. The first part of the drama takes place in Dublin, but
after a time the scene shifts to London. Transl. into French as
_Ange égaré d’un paradis ruiné_.
⸺ LISHEEN; or, the Test of the Spirits. Pp. 454. (_Longmans_). 6_s._
1907. New ed., 1914, 2_s._ 6_d._
The conception is that of Tolstoi’s _Resurrection_, with the
scene transferred to Kerry. It is the story of how a young
man of the Irish landlord class determines to put to the test
of practise his ideals of altruism. To this end he abandons
the society of his equals and lives the life of a labourer.
He finds how full of pain and heartburning and disappointment
is the way of the reformer. There are many reflections on the
national character and its defects are not whittled down. The
book has two main themes—the greed and callousness of Irish
landlords, and the inability of the Englishman to understand
Irish character.
⸺ THE BLINDNESS OF DR. GRAY; or, The Final Law. (_Longmans_). 6_s._ 1909.
New ed., 1914. 2_s._ 6_d._
The interest of this novel centres partly in its pictures of
clerical life, partly in a charming love story of an uncommon
type. The central figure is drawn with care and thoroughness.
He is a strict disciplinarian, a rigid moralist, who worships
the law with Jansenistic narrowness and hardness. But as the
story goes on we discover beneath this hard surface unsuspected
depths of human kindness. He himself finds out before the end
that it is love, not law, that rules the world. The story
contains many beautiful and touching scenes, and some fine
description, notably in the South African portion of the book.
There is some incidental criticism of various features of Irish
life—popular politics, religious divisions, the Gaelic League,
the change in the mentality of the people, and there is in it
food for thought about some of our besetting faults. Considered
by many to be the Author’s most finished and most powerful
work. Transl. into German, _Von Dr. Grays Blindheit_, with
introductory sketch (EINSIEDELN: _Benziger_). M. 6. 1911.
⸺ MIRIAM LUCAS. Pp. 470. (_Longmans_). 6_s._ [1912]. New ed., 1914. 2_s._
6_d._
Miriam is the daughter of wealthy Protestant parents in
Glendarragh, in the W. of Ireland. Her mother, on becoming a
Catholic, is driven by domestic persecution into evil ways,
and subsequently disappears. Society ostracizes Miriam, who,
in revolt against it, goes to Dublin, where, in alliance with
a young visionary Trinity student, she flings herself into the
Socialist movement. Her efforts end in a disastrous strike.
For a time she staves off crime and tragedy, but it comes at
last. Book III. brings her to New York in search of her mother,
whom she discovers sunk to the lowest moral depths. The story
hinges partly, too, on the lifting of the curse of Glendarragh
by Miriam and the hero, who makes her happy in the end. There
are not a few fine dramatic situations, but the plot does not
hang together. The book is meant to deal with Irish social
and religious problems and to picture certain phases of Irish
life. The life pictured is chiefly that of the Protestant
upper classes, of whom a severe and satirical portrait is
drawn. There are just a few glimpses of peasant life. The
Author raises more problems than he solves, and the prevailing
impression left upon the reader is one of gloom. Has been
transl. into German.
⸺ THE GRAVES AT KILMORNA. Pp. 373. (_Longmans_). 6_s._ 1915.
An attempt to set forth the spirit of the Fenian movement of
1867, and even to contrast it with subsequent movements, to
the great disadvantage of the latter; for the Author thought
that the fire of Nationality has burned very low since ’67.
The heroes are James Halpin (apparently intended for Peter
O’Neill Crowley, who fell in ’67) and Miles Cogan, Fenians and
unselfish patriots. There is some good character drawing, but
the interest of plot and incident is slight, the chief interest
being the vein of very ideal philosophy which runs through the
book. The Author is gloomy and pessimistic about modern Ireland.
=SHERLOCK, J.=
⸺ THE MAD LORD OF DRUMKEEL. Pp. 199. (_Sealy, Bryers_). 3_s._ 6_d._ 1909.
“An unexciting chronicle of the solitary Lord Barnabweel,
his quaint experiments with his Irish property and tenantry,
and the story of his son who left him, married in a Dublin
lodging-house, and became a famous musician.”—(TIMES’ LIT.
SUPPL.).
=SIDGWICK, Ethel.=
⸺ HERSELF. (_Sidgwick & Jackson_). 1912.
The story of an Irish girl in Paris and of her life and love
affairs there. Pleasantly written, and giving a kindly account
of the Irish character. (_Press Notice_).
=SIGERSON, Hester.=
⸺ A RUINED RACE; or, the Last Macmanus of Drumroosk. (_Ward & Downey_).
6_s._ 1890.
A very gloomy view of Ireland. The Author displays intimate
knowledge of Irish scenes, idioms, and characteristics.
Period: middle of nineteenth century. Pictures with painful
fidelity and much power the misfortunes of a once happy and
prosperous couple belonging to the well-to-do peasant class.
Misery seems to dog their steps from one end of the book to
the other. The girl dies in the workhouse, the man takes to
drink and is killed in an accident. Seems to aim at picturing
the difficulties and sufferings of the peasantry, especially
under the old land system. The Author was the wife of Dr. Geo.
Sigerson.
=SIME, William.= B. Wick, Caithness, 1851. D. Calcutta, 1895. Author
of several other works of fiction—_King Capital_, _To and Fro_,
_Boulderstone_.
⸺ THE RED ROUTE; or, Saving a Nation. Three Vols. (_Sonnenschein_). 1884.
Scene: West and South of Ireland, beginning with Galway, where
the hero, Finn O’Brien, goes to college and suffers much both
from collegians and peasantry. Finn becomes a Fenian, but falls
in love with an English widow who had become a Catholic to
escape the pursuit of bishops and parsons of her own Church.
The heroine is a Claddagh girl, whose love for an English
captain, Jeffrey, is crossed by the fact that she is a Fenian.
One of the love affairs ends happily, the other tragically. The
Author is not anti-Irish, but knows little about Ireland. He
drags in priests “smelling strongly of whiskey” and nuns who
have broken their vows.
=SIMPSON, John Hawkins.=
⸺ POEMS OF OISIN, Bard of Erin. Pp. 280. (_M’Glashan & Gill_). 1857.
Translated into English prose from Irish by the Author with
help of native speakers. Contents: Oisin, Bard of Erin
(introductory by the Author); Deardra; Conloch Son of Cuthullin
(_sic_); The Fenii of Erin and Fionn MacCumhal; Dialogue
between Oisin and St. Patrick (pp. 61-184); Mayo Mythology
(various Fenian Tales); The Battle of Ventry.
=SKELLY, Rev. A. M., O.P.=
⸺ CUCHULAIN OF MUIRTHEMNE. Pp. 48. (C.T.S.I.). 1_d._ 1908.
A paper read before the Catholic Literary Society, Tralee. The
Cuchulain epic briefly but admirably related. Passages of verse
from Ferguson and De Vere are skilfully interwoven. Excellent
notes at the end explain difficulties and references.
=SMART, Hawley.=
⸺ THE MASTER OF RATHKELLY. (_F. V. White_). Fifth ed. 1890.
A stirring story of love and sport in “Co. Blarney” in “the
eighties.” Mr. Eyre, one of the “ould stock,” gets into
difficulties with his tenants, who stop the “Harkhallow”
hounds and boycott him. Written from the English and landlord
standpoint. The dialect is wonderfully good and the “horsey”
scenes well done. The Author was a well-known sporting
novelist; 1833-1893.
=SMITH, Agnes; Mrs. Lewis.=
⸺ THE BRIDES OF ARDMORE: A Story of Irish Life. Pp. 393. (_Elliott,
Stock_). Frontisp.—view of Ardmore. 1880.
Ardmore, Co. Waterford, in twelfth century. A few descriptions
of scenery, but little local colour, and almost no historical
_mise-en-scène_. The chief object of the story appears to be
to picture forth a “primitive” Irish Church, unconnected with
Rome, and resembling the modern Church of Ireland in many
of its features. The priests are all married. Indeed their
matrimonial affairs and the cruel interruption of these by
decrees from Rome provide the greater part of the incidents.
The tone is not bitter towards Catholicism, but innocently
patronising and didactic.
=[SMITH, John].=
⸺ IRISH DIAMONDS. Pp. 183. 16mo. (_Chapman & Hall_). 1847. (_Gibbings_).
Five Illus. by “Phiz.” 1890.
Chapters:—On the Road, Young Ireland, Irish Wit, Irish Life,
Irish Traits, The Latter End. Humorous Irish anecdotes, rather
above the average “pigs, poteen, and praties” type, frankly
meant to amuse, but showing not a little knowledge of and
sympathy with Irish traits. When the book was written the
Author was “one of the editors of the LIVERPOOL MERCURY.”
=SMYTH, Patrick G.= B. Ballina, Co. Mayo, about 1856. Was in early years
a National School teacher. Besides his novels, he wrote verse for several
Irish periodicals between 1876-1885. For some time he was engaged on a
Chicago paper.
⸺ THE WILD ROSE OF LOUGH GILL. Pp. 306. (_Gill_). 2_s._ 6_d._ [1883].
Fifth ed., 1904. (_Benziger_). 0.85.
Though nominally not the heroes, Owen Roe O’Neill and Miles
the Slasher are the chief figures in this fine novel of the
Wars of the Confederation. A love-story is interwoven with the
historical events. The view-point is thoroughly national. The
style abounds in imagery and fine descriptive passages. The
novel is one of the most popular ever issued in Ireland. The
story ends shortly after the fall of Galway in 1652. The scene
is laid partly in Co. Sligo, where (near Lough Gill) one of the
most thrilling episodes, founded on a still living tradition,
takes place.
⸺ KING AND VIKING; or, The Ravens of Lochlan. Pp. 200. (_Sealy, Bryers_).
1_s._ _n.d._ (1889).
Tireragh (Co. Sligo) in 888, the date assigned by the Four
Masters to a great battle fought between the men of Connaught
and the Danes. The wars between Danes and Irish furnish the
chief interest of the book, but there is also the story of
the feud between Ceallach the tanist of Hy Fiachrach and
Dungallach, a rival. Much information, drawn from reliable
sources, is given regarding the Irish clans, their customs, and
their territories.
=SOMERVILLE, Edith Œnone, and “MARTIN, Ross.”= Miss Violet Martin, of
Ross, Co. Galway. Miss Somerville is dau. of the late Col. Somerville, of
Drishane, Skibbereen, Co. Cork. Both Authors are granddaughters of Chief
Justice Charles Kendal Bushe. Amongst their other works are _Naboth’s
Vineyard_, _Beggars on Horseback_, and _Through Connemara in a Governess’
Cart_ (illust.).
⸺ AN IRISH COUSIN. Pp. iv. + 306. (_Longmans_). 3_s._ 6_d._ [First ed.,
1889]; new ed., quite re-written, 1903. Ten illustr. by E. Œ. Somerville.
Modern country-house life in Co. Cork. A serious study of the
slow awakening of a young man to the realization that there are
things in life more real to him than horses and dogs. His love
for a clever cousin returned from Canada has a tragic ending.
The characters of the tale are drawn from Protestant county
society. Clever description of Durrus, the ramshackle home of
the Sarsfields. Miss Jackson-Croly’s “At Home” and the run with
the Moycullen hounds are said to be worthy of Lever.
⸺ THE REAL CHARLOTTE. (_Longmans_). 3_s._ 6_d._ [1894]. Three Vols.
(_Ward & Downey_).
A dark tale of a world “weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable.”
An unscrupulous woman works the ruin of a sweet-natured,
ill-trained girl. Scene: Irish country neighbourhood.
Characters, land agents, farmers, great ladies, drawn with
impartial and relentless truth. Pronounced by many critics to
be worthy of Balzac.
⸺ THE SILVER FOX. Pp. 195. (_Longmans_). 3_s._ 6_d._ [1898]. (_Lawrence
and Bullen_).
The chief interest of this story lies in some sporting scenes
in the West of Ireland. The peasantry are seen from an
uncomprehending standpoint, and the chief figures are people
of fashion, of no particular nationality. “Broadly speaking,
the novel may be said to exhibit in a dramatic form the
extraordinary hold which superstition still possesses on the
minds of the Irish peasantry.”—(_Spectator_).
⸺ SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. Pp. iv. + 310. Thirty-second
thousand. (_Longmans_). 3_s._ 6_d._ Thirty-one illustr. (pen and ink
sketches) by E. Œ. Somerville. 1899.
Racy, humorous sketches of hunting and other episodes in the
south and west. The Author’s most successful work originally
appeared in THE BADMINTON MAGAZINE.
⸺ ALL ON THE IRISH SHORE. Pp. iv. + 274. Eighteenth thousand.
(_Longmans_). 3_s._ 6_d._ Ten illustr. by E. Œ. Somerville. 1903.
Sketches of fox-hunting, horse-dealing, racing, trials for
assault between neighbours, petty boycotting, rural larking,
full of sprightly and rollicking humour. Chief characters, the
petty county gentry. The peasantry are drawn in caricature,
usually friendly, and are shown in relation to their social
superiors, not in their own life and reality. If these sketches
were taken seriously, the peasantry would appear as drunken,
quarrelsome, lying, dirty, unconsciously comical—with scarcely
a single redeeming trait. The scene is south-western Cork.
_All on the Irish Shore_ has been described (IRISH MONTHLY) as
“a blend of Lover and Lever (in his coarser rollicking days)
refined by some of the literary flavour of Jane Barlow, but
with none of the insight and sympathy of _Irish Idylls_. The
same may be said of the _Experiences of an Irish R.M._, which
moreover, contains here and there passages needlessly offensive
to national feeling.” Titles of some chapters:—Fanny Fitz’s
Gamble, A Grand Filly, High Tea at McKeown’s, A Nineteenth
Century Miracle, &c.
N.B.—Messrs. Longmans have (April, 1910) issued a new uniform
edition of the works of Somerville and Ross, at 3_s._ 6_d._ per
volume.
⸺ FURTHER EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH R.M. Pp. 315. (_Longmans_). 3_s._ 6_d._
1908.
⸺ SOME IRISH YESTERDAYS. Eleventh thousand. (_Longmans_). 3_s._ 6_d._
Fifty-one illustr. by E. Œ. Somerville. 1908.
Admirable illustrations of Connemara scenery, clever sketches
of “natives” (usually of the lowest type). Light magazine
sketches written in clever, racy style. Subjects: Holidays
in Aran and Connemara and Carbery, picnics, country house
anecdotes, superficial studies of peasants in Connemara and
Cork. “In Sickness and in Health” pays a tribute to the
strength of the marriage bond in Ireland.
⸺ DAN RUSSELL, THE FOX. Pp. 340. (_Methuen_). 6_s._ 1911.
Miss Rowan comes over to Ireland and takes “Lake View,” in
the midst of a hunting district in S. Munster. She falls in
love—for the time—with John Michael, handsome, and the most
valiant of huntsmen, but a child of nature whose whole mind
is absorbed in hounds and horses. Hence complications. The
Author’s usual pictures of hunting scenes and happy-go-lucky
country gentry. Mrs. Delanty, the sharp and devious widow, is
a curious portrait. Dan Russell is scarcely more than a minor
character in the piece. It is a story about which we cannot
speak favourably.
⸺ IN MR. KNOX’S COUNTRY. (_Longmans_). 6_s._ Eight full-page illustr. in
chalk. 1915.
Eleven sketches of the same type as the _Experiences of an
Irish R.M._, with some new _dramatis personæ_ in the old
localities.
=SQUIRE, Charles.=
⸺ THE BOY HERO OF ERIN. Pp. 240. (_Blackie_). 2_s._ 6_d._ Handsome cover.
Four good illustr. by A. A. Dixon. 1907.
The Cuchulainn Saga told in simple and clear, but somewhat
unemotional and matter-of-fact, style. Sources: Miss Hull’s
_Cuchulainn Saga_ and Miss Winifred Faraday’s _Cattle Raid of
Cuailgne_ (_q.v._). The Author holds Cuchulainn to be a hero
“not less brave and far more chivalrous than any Greek or
Trojan” (Pref.), and thinks that the ancient Gael “invented the
noble system of conduct which we call courtesy.”
⸺ CELTIC MYTH AND LEGEND, Poetry and Romance. Pp. 450. (_Gresham
Publishing Co._). Four Plates in colour by J. H. F. Bacon; fourteen in
monochrome by the same and others, and a few photos, _n.d._
A kind of digest of the chief published translations of ancient
Irish and Welsh saga and romance, preceded by four short
essays on the interest of Celtic mythology, and the sources
of our knowledge of it, the origin of the Britons and their
religion (44 pp. in all). Pp. 47-248 are a summary of Gaelic
myth, &c., and pp. 250-395 of British ditto. Then there is an
essay on survivals of Celtic paganisms, and an Append. giving
brief bibliogr. Index. The myths and romances are not related
as a tale is told; they are merely placed on record, almost
stripped of their poetry, along with all the extravagances
and absurdities that disfigure them, chiefly through modern
corruptions. Of little or no interest for young people.
=STACE, Henry.=
⸺ THE ADVENTURES OF COUNT O’CONNOR in the Dominions of the Great Mogul.
Pp. 343. (_Alston Rivers_). 1_s._ [1907]. 1909.
A string of impossible situations and thrilling escapes,
purporting to be the adventures of an Irish soldier of fortune
in India about 1670, related by himself. The Count frequently
discourses of the honour of an Irish gentleman, and never acts
up to it. His character is that of a thorough rascal. The book
contains many disreputable adventures in harems.
=STACPOOLE KENNY, Mrs.= _see_ =KENNY=.
=STACPOOLE, H. de Vere.= Son of Rev. William Church Stacpoole, D.D., of
Kingstown, Co. Dublin. Ed. Malvern College, and St. Mary’s Hospital,
London. Is a qualified medical man, but does not practise. Has travelled
much. Resides near Chelmsford. Has publ. about twenty-two novels.—(WHO’S
WHO). Some of these have been very successful, _e.g._, _The Blue Lagoon_.
⸺ PATSY. Pp. 362. (_Fisher Unwin_). 6_s._ 1908.
A gay and humorous story of a house-party in a country
mansion somewhere in “Mid-Meath.” Full of amusing characters,
cleverly sketched, _e.g._, the Englishman, Mr. Fanshawe, and
the naughty and natural children. Above all there is Patsy,
the page-boy, an odd mixture of soft-hearted simplicity and
preternatural cuteness. He is the _deus ex machina_ of the
piece, causes all sorts of entanglements, and unravels them
again in the strangest way. There is just a little study of
national characteristics, but no politics nor problems.
⸺ GARRYOWEN: The Romance of a Racehorse. Pp. 352. (_Fisher Unwin_). 6_s._
1910.
“A rattling good story ... Moriarty the trainer is a gem—Mickey
Free redivivus, as full of tricks as a bag of weasels. The
Author knows his Irish peasantry inside and out, and the only
blot on an exceptional book is a needless disquisition on the
rights and wrongs of ‘cattle-driving.’”—(I.B.L.).
⸺ FATHER O’FLYNN. Pp. 245. (_Hutchinson_). 1_s._ 1914.
The idea of the book, which is dedicated to Sir E. Carson and
Mr. Redmond, is (see Pref.) to show the Catholic priest as the
chief factor in present-day Irish life. The priest in question
is represented in a favourable and friendly spirit, though
perhaps hardly “at his best,” as the Author suggests. The
chief interest is perhaps a love affair, conducted chiefly on
horseback, which is told in a lively and spirited way.
=STAVERT, A. A. B.=
⸺ THE BOYS OF BALTIMORE. Pp. 212. (_Burns & Oates_). 2_s._ 6_d._ 1907.
A splendid boy’s story. Rich in the vein of adventure, of sport
and fight by land, of war by sea, of captivity and slavery.
With this there is a solid, but not too obtrusive, lesson of
the value of faith and piety in a boy’s life. The piety of
the young heroes has nothing mawkish about it. The tone is
Catholic. The brogue is very badly imitated.—(N.I.R.). Scene
changes from Cork to Africa, and thence to London. Strafford,
Wentworth, Laud, and Charles I. appear in the story.
=STEPHENS, James.= B. Dublin, 1884. Worked for some years in a
solicitor’s office, but has definitely taken to literature. His first
published volume was _Insurrections_, since which two other volumes
of verse have appeared, and a fourth is about to appear. Has resided
principally in Paris for the past two years, but is now living in Dublin,
where he holds the position of Registrar at the National Gallery of
Ireland. His writings have met with an enthusiastic reception from the
critics.
⸺ THE CHARWOMAN’S DAUGHTER. Pp. 228. (_Macmillan_). 3_s._ 6_d._ 1912.
Publ. in U.S.A. under title _Mary, Mary_.
A study of the soul of a simple girl of the people and its
development amid the surroundings of a Dublin tenement house
and of the Dublin streets—her girlhood, her dreams for the
future, her love affairs. The incidents are quite subordinate
to the psychological interest. The atmosphere of the reality is
carefully reproduced if somewhat idealised. There is nothing
morbid nor sensational in the book. This, the Author’s first
published novel, and many think his best, first appeared in THE
IRISH REVIEW.
⸺ THE CROCK OF GOLD. Pp. 312. (_Macmillan_). Many reprints. 1912.
Described, accurately enough, by THE TIMES as “this delicious,
fantastical, amorphous, inspired medley of topsy-turveydom.”
A fantasy in which human beings with Irish names, Irish gods
and fairies, and the god Pan are mingled to bewilderment. And
the whole is leavened with what may or may not be the Author’s
philosophy. “Love is unclean and holy” ... “Virtue is the
performance of pleasant actions.” “Philosophy would lead to
the great sin of sterility.” These sentences are isolated from
the context, but they seem to indicate the general trend—the
philosophy of Pan. However, there is much besides this in the
torrent of wayward thought and fancy that is here let loose.
The pictures of nature are finely and delicately touched. And
there is humour of a strange kind not easy to define.
⸺ HERE ARE LADIES. Pp. 349. (_Macmillan_). 5_s._ 1913.
Fragments of the Author’s peculiar philosophy of life conveyed
in odds and ends of stories and sketches. Some are pure fancy,
some are very closely observed bits of real life; some are
humorous, with a kind of sardonic humour; some whimsical,
some border on pathos. Many deal with various phases of
married life. Little poems are sandwiched between the tales.
The book is full of aphorisms, indeed the style is a riot
of curious metaphor, flights of fancy, unexpected turns of
phrase. The last piece (pp. 277-348) consists of a series of
disquisitions by an old gentleman in the style of the Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table. An Irish flavour is noticeable at
frequent intervals. The idiom (not the brogue) of Anglo-Irish
conversation is well reproduced.
⸺ THE DEMI-GODS. Pp. 280. (_Macmillan_). 5_s._ 1914.
The travels through Ireland of Patsy McCann, tinker and general
rascal, and his daughter Mary, in company with three angels,
become tinkers for the nonce. Patsy is a very human and a very
real tinker, an ugly specimen of a disreputable class. The
wanderings of this strange company form a thin thread on which
is strung a medley of strange fancies, wayward comments, scraps
of very excellent description, and glimpses of low life in
its most sordid aspects (_e.g._, the drab Eileen Cooley, who
appears at intervals). There is an effort to picture not only
the outward doings, experiences, and sensations of the tramps,
but also their outlook, such as it is, upon life, their makings
of a philosophy, and the morality of the roads.
=STEUART, John A.= Author (born 1861) of _A Millionaire’s Daughter_,
_Self Exiled_, _In the Day of Battle_, _The Minister of State_, _Wine
on the Lees_, _The Eternal Quest_, _A Son of Gad_, _The Rebel Wooing_,
&c., &c. Was born in Perthshire; lived in Ireland, America, and England.
Edited PUBLISHERS’ CIRCULAR, 1896-1900.
⸺ KILGROOM. Pp. 228. (_Low_). 6_s._ and 2_s._ 6_d._ [1890]. 1900.
The interest of the story turns on incidents of the Land War
in a southern county. The Author takes the popular side, and
paints the evils of landlordism in the darkest colours. Most of
the characters are humble folk, including an amusing Scotchman,
Sandy M’Tear. The story tells how a thirst for vengeance,
engendered by oppression, takes possession of the young
peasant, Ned Blake, almost stifling his love for his betrothed
and ruining his life.
=STEVENSON, JOHN.= Is a member of the printing and publishing firm of
McCaw, Stevenson & Orr, of Belfast. He made his first hit with _Pat
McCarty, Farmer of Antrim: His Rhymes, with a Setting_ (1903), in part
reprinted from THE PEN, a magazine run by the employes of his company.
⸺ A BOY IN THE COUNTRY. Pp. 312. (_Arnold_). 5_s._ Illustr. by W. Arthur
Fry. 1913.
A lad sent for his health to the care of an aunt in Co. Antrim
tells his experiences and observations, his thoughts and
dreams, and he tells them charmingly. Stories and anecdotes of
the lives of the folk among whom he lives, told with insight
and sympathy.
=STEWART, Agnes M.=
⸺ GRACE O’HALLORAN. (_Gill._ N.Y.: _Benziger_). 0.60 net. [1857]. 1884,
&c.
Sub-title: “Ireland and Its Peasantry.” “Another of A.
Stewart’s pious little stories.... The reader will fail to
discover much originality or force; but in these days it is no
small praise to say there is nothing to condemn.”—(D.R.). Miss
S. wrote a great number of stories between 1846 and 1887. All
are highly moral in aim and tone, a series of them having for
titles the various moral virtues.
⸺ FLORENCE O’NEILL; or, The Siege of Limerick. 1871.
Also publ. under title _Florence O’Neill_, or, The Rose of
Saint Germain.
⸺ THE LIMERICK VETERAN; or, The Foster Sisters. (N.Y.: _Benziger_). 0.60
net. 1873.
=STEWART, Miss E. M.=
⸺ ALL FOR PRINCE CHARLIE; or, The Irish Cavalier. Pp. 270. (_Duffy_).
1_s._ Very cheap paper and print. _n.d._
The ’45 from a strongly Catholic and Jacobite standpoint.
The story opens in an old castle in Bantry Bay, where the
hero and heroine meet before the former goes off to fight for
Prince Charlie. Various adventures during the raid on England
and the retreat, and a complicated plot turning on the close
resemblance between the hero and a twin brother, supposed dead,
but who plays the traitor and the spy. All is well in the end.
Some glimpses of penal laws at work. A little comic relief is
afforded by the talk of Paddy O’Rafferty. Dialect poor.
=STEWART, Rev. J.=
⸺ THE KILLARNEY POOR SCHOLAR. Pp. 164. 16mo. (LONDON). [1845]. Third ed.,
1846. New ed., 1866.
Sub-t.:—“Comprising the most remarkable features of the
enchanting scenery of the Irish lakes, interspersed with
sketches of real character.” In pref. Author claims thorough
knowledge of places and people described. His object is to
impress a high moral tone upon the mind. “A moral is deduced
from every incident: a moral established by every dialogue.”
This aim is fully carried out in the little story, which is
merely a peg whereon to hang a moral, and is very sentimental.
=STOKER, Bram.= 1847-1912. B. in Dublin. Ed. T.C.D., where he had a
distinguished career. Entered Civil Service and was called to the
Bar, but subsequently for twenty-seven years secretary to Sir Henry
Irving. Wrote also _Dracula_, _Miss Betty_, _The Mystery of the Sea_,
_Snowbound_, &c., &c.
⸺ THE SNAKE’S PASS. Pp. 372. (_Collier_). 1_s._ New ed. [1891]. (N.Y.:
_Harper_). 0.40. 1909.
A tale written around the strange phenomenon of a moving bog.
Scene: the Mayo coast, which is finely described. Hidden
treasure, prophetic dreams, attempted murder, and much love and
sentiment are bound up with the story. The sentiment is pure
and even lofty. There is no bigotry nor bias, and no vulgar
stage-Irishism. Andy Sullivan, the carman, is drawn with much
humour and kindliness, but we cannot consider “Father Pether” a
true type of Irish priest.
=STOKES, Whitley.= Ed.
⸺ THE DESTRUCTION OF DÁ DERGA’S HOSTEL. (PARIS: _Bouillon_). 1902.
“Conary becomes king on condition that he abide by certain
bonds (_geasa_) imposed on him by his fairy kinsfolk. Having
transgressed these conditions, he comes to his death in a
great affray with outlaws, who attack the hostel. Portents
and marvels are characteristic of the story from beginning to
end.”—(_Baker_, 2).
=“STRADLING, Matthew,”= _see_ =MAHONY, Martin F.=
=STRAHAN, Samuel A. K., M.D.=
⸺ THE RESIDENT MAGISTRATE. (LONDON: _Alexander & Shepherd_). 1_s._ 1888.
A tale of the “Jubilee Coercion days.” The leading character is
founded on Captain Plunket of “Don’t hesitate to shoot” fame.
With the doings of this personage (which look like clippings
from the STAR newspaper of those days) is mingled the story
of a persecuted heroine suffering from an uncommon form of
mania (in which the Author was a specialist). Dr. Strahan was
a Belfast man. The materials of the story are handled, we
think, with but little skill. Another of his stories, _Dead yet
Speaketh_ (Arrowsmith), was founded on the sudden death in his
chambers in the Temple of an Irish fellow-student of the Author.
=STRAIN, E. H.=
⸺ A MAN’S FOES. Pp. 467. (_Ward, Lock_). 6_s._ Illustr. by A. Forestier.
(N.Y.: _New Amsterdam Book Co._). 0.50. [1895.] Three Vols.
A strongly conceived and vigorously written historical tale
of the siege of Derry. Point of view aggressively English and
Protestant. The personages in the story often express bitterly
anti-Catholic sentiments, but only such as may reasonably
be supposed to have been freely expressed at the period.
The Author, a Scottish lady resident in Ayrshire, has also
published four other works of fiction.
=“SWAN, Annie S.”; Mrs. Burnett Smith.= B. Mountskip, Goresbridge, N.B.
Ed. Edinburgh. Has written a great many novels. Resides in England or at
Kinghorn, Scotland.—(WHO’S WHO).
⸺ A SON OF ERIN. Pp. 344. (_Hutchinson_). 6_s._ Six illustr. 1899 and
1907.
Scene: first Edinburgh, then chiefly Co. Wicklow. Period: just
before retirement of Butt and rise of Parnell, who is one of
the personages of the tale. The interest turns on the discovery
of the identity of a child abandoned in Edinburgh when an
infant. No love interest. Titles of over sixty of her novels
will be found in Mudie’s list.
=SYKES, Jessica S. C.=
⸺ THE M’DONNELLS. Pp. 299. (_Heinemann_). 6_s._ 1905.
Aims at presenting picture of early Victorian manners and
morals as seen in the life of this (rather unattractive)
family, of Irish origin, but living in England, and in their
surroundings. It was a period lacking in ideals and unstirred
by new ideas, artistic, literary, or other. The Author paints
it stupid, gross, and material, and seems to sum it up as
“humbug” (from a review in the ATHENÆUM).
Lord Charles Beresford, in a letter to the writer (see Pref.),
acknowledges the book as “a true picture of English and Irish
life in the upper circles of society five and forty years
ago,” and that “it explains the idiocrasies (_sic_) of the
Irish people, both Nationalist and Orange, and gives a clear
explanation of the real causes of the unceasing discontent and
strife existing in our sister isle.” “I have tried to give
a description of the condition ... to which English females
of position were reduced by a wave of Evangelical cant and
exaggerated morality....”—(Pref.). Has written also _Algernon
Casterton_ and _Mark Alston_.
=“SYNAN, A.,”= _see_ =CLERY, A. E.=
=TAUNTON, M.=
⸺ THE LAST OF THE CATHOLIC O’MALLEYS. (_Washbourne._ N.Y.: _Kenedy_).
Scene: Western Mayo, about 1798, but no historical events are
introduced. An unpretentious little story, telling how Grace
is married at fifteen against her will to a disreputable young
man. He grows fond of her, and dies penitent three years after.
Their child is stolen by a too fond nurse. The child grows up
and joins the navy. Years after, Grace, who has married a naval
officer, gets her sailor son back.
=TAYLOR, Mary Imlay.=
⸺ MY LADY CLANCARTY. Pp. 298. (_Gay & Bird_). Illus. by A. B. Stephens.
1905.
“Being the true story of the Earl of Clancarty and Lady
Elizabeth Spencer.” Donough McCarthy, a Jacobite nobleman,
married in childhood to wealthy heiress of English Whig family,
does not meet his bride again till many years later, and then
in strange circumstances. Scene: England in days of William
III., with glimpses of Ireland in the background. Appears to be
founded on Tom Taylor’s play, _Clancarty_.
=TEMPLETON, Herminie.=
⸺ DARBY O’GILL AND THE GOOD PEOPLE. (N.Y.: _McClure_). 1.50. 1903.
=TENCH, Mary F. A.= Resides in London, and writes a good deal for the
periodicals.
⸺ AGAINST THE PIKES. Pp. 357. (_Russell_). _n.d._ (1903).
How the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to
the third and fourth generation. Phil O’Brien, returning to
Ireland after long years of sin and suffering in Australia,
finds his first love unchanged in heart—only to see her taken
from him by death. He foregoes for her sake revenge on the man
who had wrecked his life, and dies to save his enemy. Though
the characters are Irish, there is little about Irish life
(nothing about pikes). The whole book is very sad, the pathos
of the close is painful, “_navrant_.” By the same Author:
_Where the Surf Breaks_, _A Prince from the Great Never-Never_,
&c.
=THACKERAY, William Makepeace.= The great novelist paid only one visit
to Ireland (1842), the immediate outcome of which was his _Irish Sketch
Book_ (1843). The tone of this book gave great offence to Irishmen
generally. Sir Samuel Ferguson severed his connection with the DUBLIN
UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE because Lever, then editor, accepted Thackeray’s
dedication. He could speak of the Young Irelanders only in terms of
ridicule—witness his ballad “The Battle of Limerick”—though he was a
personal friend of Gavan Duffy. He derived some of the incidents of
_Barry Lyndon_ from the chap-book, _Life of Freney_, which he read one
night in Galway. Many of the characters in his greater novels are Irish,
_e.g._, “The O’Mulligan,” said to be founded on W. J. O’Connell; “Capt.
Shandon,” whose original was Dr. Maginn; “Capt. Costigan” and his famous
daughter, “the Fotheringay,” said to be suggested by the dramatic triumph
of Miss O’Neill, afterwards Lady Becher. “Ye hate us, Mr. Thackeray, ye
hate the Irish,” said to him Anthony Trollope’s old Irish coachman. “Hate
you? God help me, when all I ever loved on earth was Irish!” and his eyes
filled with tears.—(_Trollope_). His wife was Irish.
⸺ THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. [1844]. Many editions in all styles.
The autobiography of a blackguard and a cad, a compound of
every vice—meanness, mendacity, licentiousness, heartless
selfishness. Add to these swagger, vulgarity, and a fire-eating
audacity, which, however, is always on the safe side, and you
have the portrait of the hero as painted by himself. All the
characters are vicious or contemptible or both, the English
and other foreigners no better than the Irish. Lyndon (real
name Redmond Barry) belongs to an ancient and decayed family,
once aristocratic. The story tells how he fights a duel at
home in Ballybarry, falls in with swindlers in Dublin, deserts
from the army, serves under Frederick the Great in the Seven
Years’ War, becomes a professional but aristocratic gamester,
marries (after a desperate struggle) the rich Lady Lyndon,
blazes through a brief season in Dublin (1771), worries his
wife into her grave, and finally runs through all his wealth.
There is some humour in places, but it is grim and sardonic,
and does not relieve the picture. Moral (see footnote near the
close)—“Do not as many rogues succeed in life as honest men?
More fools than men of talent?” Founded in part on the strange
marriage of Andrew Bowes and the Countess of Strathmore at end
of eighteenth century.
=THOMAS, Edward.=
⸺ CELTIC STORIES. Pp. 128. (OXFORD: _The Clarendon Press_). 1911.
“The Boyhood of Cuhoolin,” “Father and Son,” “The Battle of the
Companions” (C. and Ferdia), “The Death of C.,” “Deirdre and
Naisi,” “The Palace of the Quicken Trees,” “The Land of Youth.”
The rest (pp. 82-end) are Welsh tales. Told very plainly
and briefly, yet not dully. The diction is quite modern and
prosaic. The grotesquer folk-lore elements are not excluded.
The Author has also publ. _Norse Stories_ and many other works
on a variety of subjects.
=THOMPSON, E. Skeffington.= Was a granddaughter of John Foster, last
Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. She was an ardent Nationalist.
About 1889 she and her sister Mrs. Rae founded the Southwark Junior Irish
Literary Society.
⸺ MOY O’BRIEN. Pp. 300. (_Gill_). 3_s._ 6_d._ [1887]. New ed., 1914.
Deals with the politics of the day, but not to the neglect of
the story, which shows considerable literary power, though
containing but little incident. Strongly patriotic in tone.
There is no religious bias. Treats of social and political life
in Ireland thirty or forty years ago. Ends with many happy
marriages. First appeared in U.S.A. in HARPER’S (IRISH MONTHLY).
=THOMSON, C. L.=
⸺ THE CELTIC WONDER WORLD. Pp. 155. (_Horace Marshall_). 1902.
No. 2 of the _Romance Readers_. Irish, Welsh, and Breton
stories edited for children. Very pretty and imaginative
illustr. by E. Connor. The tales are taken from good
sources—Whitley Stokes, Standish O’Grady, Crofton Croker,
“Atlantis,” O’Curry, the Mabinogion, &c. Contains “Deirdre,”
“Ossian in the Land of Youth,” Cuchulainn stories, &c., told in
simple but not childish language.
=THURNEYSEN, Rudolf.=
⸺ SAGEN AUS DEM ALTEN IRLAND. Pp. 152. Demy 8vo. (BERLIN: _Wiegandt &
Grieben_). 1901.
Short introd., then very briefly (in German, of course) the
chief Irish sagas—the Courtships of Etain and of Fraoch,
Mesgedra, Bricriu, episodes from the Cuchulainn cycle, the
birth of Conachar, the Vision of MacConglinne, &c.
=THURSTON, E. Temple.= His novels are for the most part a series of
studies or rather pamphlets on the action and influence of the Catholic
Church on human nature. His conclusions are usually hostile to that
Church. His writings give constant evidence of misconception of Catholic
doctrine. Incidentally Irish types and scenes are introduced, and the
writer is fond of comments on Irish life and character. Moreover, his
first four books aim at “brutal” realism, or naturalism. His recent book,
_The City of Beautiful Nonsense_, is a reaction to Idealism. Besides
his Irish novels, noticed below, he has written _Sally Bishop_, _The
Evolution of Katherine_, _The Realist_, and other tales (more or less
anti-Christian in tendency), and _Mirage_.
⸺ THE APPLE OF EDEN. Pp. 323. (_Chapman & Hall_). 1905.
An argument against the celibacy of the clergy, conveyed in
the story of a young priest—his childhood, inexperience, life
at Maynooth, first experiences in confessional. Here he meets
the woman whom he had loved. He tells her that, but for the
fact that she is married, he would break all ties for her sake.
There is much study of Irish life (in Waterford), but the
Author has nothing good to say about anything Irish, country
doctors and priests being especially attacked.
⸺ TRAFFIC. Pp. 452. (_Duckworth_). 1906.
Scene: Waterford and London. Has been well described by the
ATHENÆUM as a pamphlet in guise of a story, the thesis being
that the refusal of the right of divorce in the Catholic Church
may lead in practice to results disastrous to morality. This is
conveyed in the story of a girl who leaves an unworthy Irish
husband, and goes to London, where, being obliged to refuse
an offer of marriage from an honourable Protestant, she takes
to the streets. Contains strange misconceptions of Catholic
doctrine and morality.
⸺ THE GARDEN OF RESURRECTION. Pp. 307. (_Chapman & Hall_). 6_s._ [1911].
1912.
Sub-t.: “Being the love story of an ugly man”—viz., Bellairs,
a confirmed bachelor, who tells his own story. Overhears in
restaurant conversation of a young man, from which he learns
that the latter is about to marry a young West Indian girl
named Clarissa, but cares only for her money. Bellairs is
struck with pity for her, and determines to tell Clarissa of
the worthlessness of Harry. He goes to the W. of Ireland, where
Harry had left her in charge of two maiden aunts. She will not
believe him, and goes to London with Harry. He betrays and
deserts her: she comes back forlorn to Bellairs, and they are
married. The writer has a keen feeling for nature, and there
is much description. The character study is careful and the
style is full of pleasant whimsicalities. The “Cruikshank” and
“Bellwattle” of _The Patchwork Papers_ reappear here.
⸺ THIRTEEN. Pp. 279. (_Chapman & Hall_). 1912.
Short stories reproduced from magazines. Three of the thirteen
are little bits of Irish—Wexford—life:—“The Little Sisters of
Mercy,” “An Idyll of Science,” and “Holy Ann.” The rest deal
with London. There is sentimentality and mannerism, but the
literary craftsmanship is very good.
⸺ THE PASSIONATE CRIME: a Tale of the Faerie. Pp. 311. 6_s._ (_Chapman &
Hall_). 1915.
“The story of a strange murder—the murderer a poet—solitary
among the romantic atmosphere of the lonely Irish
hills.”—(TIMES LIT. SUP.).
=THURSTON, Katherine Cecil.= B. Cork in 1875. Dau. of Paul Madden, a
friend of Parnell, and at one time nationalist mayor of Cork. She began
to write only in 1903, and married E. Temple Thurston, _q.v._ Died at
Cork, 1911. In this short period appeared six or seven novels. Of _John
Chilcote, M.P._, her greatest success, it is estimated that 200,000
copies were sold in America alone.
⸺ THE GAMBLER. (_Hutchinson_). 6_s._, and 6_d._ _n.d._ (1906). (N.Y.:
_Harper_). 1.50.
A psychological study of an Irish woman’s character. Treats of
Protestant upper middle class society, but questions of creed
do not enter into the book. The scene for about the first third
of the book is laid in Ireland, in an out-of-the-way country
district. Then it shifts to Venice, and afterwards to London.
In both places the heroine moves in a smart set, whose empty
life and petty follies are well drawn. There is a problem of
pathetic interest centering in two ill-assorted marriages. The
part about Irish life, showing the foolish pride of some of the
Irish gentry, is skilfully and sympathetically done.
⸺ THE FLY ON THE WHEEL. Pp. 327. (_Blackwood_). 6_s._ (N.Y.: _Dodd &
Mead_). 1.50. 1908.
Middle class Catholic society in Waterford, pictured, without
satire, in its exterior aspects by one quite familiar with
them. The heroine is an impulsive, self-willed girl in revolt
against conventionality. With her Stephen Carey, a middle-aged
man, conventionally married, falls in love and is loved in
return. The theme on the whole is treated with restraint,
yet there are passionate scenes. The complication is ended
by the intervention of a priest, whose character is very
sympathetically drawn. The end of all is the suicide of the
girl.
=THYNNE, Robert.=
⸺ RAVENSDALE. Three Vols. (_Tinsley_). 1873.
An attempt to represent the men and motives of the Emmet
insurrection. Point of view Unionist. Free from caricature,
vulgarity, patois, and conventional local colour. Scene at
first in England, but mainly Dublin and Co. Wicklow. Deals with
fortunes of a family named Featherstone—loyalists, with one
exception, Leslie, who is a friend of Emmet. Michael Dwyer,
Emmet, Lord Kilwarden, &c., figure in the tale. Love, hatred,
murder, incidents of 1803, Emmet’s trial, escape of Leslie and
his ultimate restoration keep up the interest to the end, when
the real murderer confesses.
⸺ TOM DELANY. Three Vols. (_Tinsley_). [1873]. 1876.
Begins with sale, in Encumbered Estates Court, of Mrs.
Delany’s property in the West. The family then emigrate to
Melbourne, where the rest of the story takes place. Most of
the characters, however, are Irish, from Sergeant Doolan to
Mr. Brabazon. There are various love-affairs, ending some
brightly, others sadly; and there are pictures of life in the
gold-diggings. Eventually the estate is restored, and the
family comes back to Ireland.
⸺ STORY OF A CAMPAIGN ESTATE. Pp. 429. (_Long_). 6_s._ Several editions.
1899.
A tale of the Land League and the Plan of Campaign, written
from the landlord’s point of view. The estate is placed near
the Curragh of Kildare. The chief characters are nearly all
drawn from the Protestant middle and upper classes. There is
also a fanatical Land League priest, and a peacemaking one, of
whom a favourable portrait is drawn. “More cruel,” says the
hero, “more selfish, more destructive than our fathers’ loins
is the little finger of this unwritten law of the land—this
juggernaut before which the people bow, and are crushed.” The
question is ably argued out in many places in the book. The
Author seems to identify the Land League with the worst secret
societies, such as the Invincibles. The tone is not violent;
there is no caricaturing, and no brogue.
⸺ IRISH HOLIDAYS. Pp. 317. (_Long_). 6_s._ 1898, 1906, &c.
Story of an Englishman who goes down to spend his holidays
with the Rev. John Good, Curate of Coolgreany, somewhere in
the Bog of Allen, six miles from Birr and six from Banagher.
Chiefly concerned, apart from a few sporting incidents, with
aspects of agrarian agitation. Traditional English Conservative
standpoint, accentuated by ignorance of Irish history and
present conditions, and by ludicrous misconceptions. Fanciful
descriptions of moonlighting, in which the peasantry appear as
a mixture of fools and ruffians. But little humour, and that
unconscious. No objectionable matter from religious or moral
standpoint.
⸺ BOFFIN’S FIND. Pp. 324. (_Long_). 6_s._ 1899 and 1906.
An exciting tale of Australian life in the fifties. One of the
characters is a stage-Irishman of the earlier Lever type, who
in one chapter relates his experiences with the Ribbonmen.
⸺ JOHN TOWNLEY. Pp. 346. (_Drane_). 1901.
A political novel, “the last of a trilogy of Irish
disaffection.”—(Pref.). J. T. is an Anglican clergyman who
becomes a Catholic and, later, a priest. He comes to Ireland,
where he finds the priests immersed in politics and using
the confessional for political purposes. He is involved
in circumstances of a tragic kind, and to escape from a
disagreeable situation he goes to S. Africa, where he reverts
to Protestantism. Dwells much on boycotting, moonlighting and
murder. Describes the Phœnix Park murders, the subsequent
trial, and the murder of the informer. The interest is
exclusively political.
=TOTTENHAM, G. L.=
⸺ TERENCE McGOWAN, the Irish Tenant. Two Vols. (_Smith, Elder_). 1870.
Depicts, from the landlord’s point of view, the land struggle
in the sixties. This view-point is, in general, that “poor
backward, barbarous, benighted Ireland” owed whatever good it
possessed to the landlord class: the influence of the priest
was evil: and Ireland’s troubles due mainly to the lawlessness
and unreasonableness of the people and the weakness of the
government. But the writer is not without knowledge of the
people, and his pictures of life are probably true enough
in the main. The story is well told, and the love story of
Terence and Kathleen O’Hara and their sad fate is feelingly
related. The book brings out well the evil results of the rule
of a thoroughly unsympathetic landlord in the person of the
English Mr. Majoribanks. An idea is given of how elections were
conducted at the time. This Author wrote also _Harry Egerton_,
_Harcourt_, and other novels.
=TOWNSHEND, Dorothea.=
⸺ THE CHILDREN OF NUGENTSTOWN and their Dealings with the Sidhe.[14] Pp.
176. (_Nutt_). 3_s._ 6_d._ Eight good illustr. by Ruth Cobb. 1911.
The young Nugents, two boys and a girl, go to visit their Aunt
in her tumbledown old family place near Cork. The children get
into touch with the fairies, and as a result family papers are
recovered and fortune smiles once more on the Nugents.
[14] i.e., Fairies.
=“TRAVERS, Coragh,”= _see_ =CRAWFORD, Mary S.=
=TRENCH, W. Stewart.= 1808-1872. Was land agent in Ireland to the
Marquess of Lansdowne, the Marquess of Bath, and Lord Digby. Owing to
his very admirable character he came to be respected by the people. His
opinion of Irish character was very high. His views will be found set
forth more fully in his _Realities of Irish Life_.
⸺ IERNE. (_Longmans_). Two Vols. 1871.
“A study of agrarian crime ... in which the Author used
material collected for a history of Ireland, which he refrained
from publishing owing to the feeling occasioned by the
controversy over the Irish Land Bill. He endeavours ... to
show the causes of the obstinate resistance by the Irish to
measures undertaken for their benefit, and to show the method
of cure.”—(_Baker_).
=TROLLOPE, Anthony.= 1815-1882. Lived in Ireland, 1841-1859, at
Banagher and at Clonmel. Finished in Ireland his first two novels, _The
MacDermotts_ (1844), and _The Kellys and O’Kellys_ (1848), both failures
with the public. He claims to have known the people, and was sympathetic
but anti-nationalist. It would be out of place here to dwell on the place
in English literature of the Author of _Barchester Towers_ and _The
Warden_ and _Orley Farm_, and the rest. An admirable contemporary article
on his novels will be found in DUBLIN REVIEW, 1872, Vol. 71, p. 393.
The following deserves quotation: “This Englishman, keenly observant,
painstaking, absolutely sincere and unprejudiced, with a lynx-like
clearness of vision, and a power of literal reproduction of which his
clerical and domestic novels, remarkable as they exhibit it, do not
furnish such striking examples, writes a story as true to the saddest
and heaviest truths of Irish life, as racy of the soil, as rich with the
peculiar humour, the moral features, the social oddities, the subtle
individuality of the far west of Ireland as George Eliot’s novels are
true to the truths of English life.”
⸺ THE MACDERMOTTS OF BALLYCLORAN. (_Lane_). 1_s._ [1844]. 1909.
Scene: Co. Leitrim. Chief characters: the members of a
broken-down Catholic county family. Miss MacDermott is engaged
to a Sub-Inspector of police. This latter, because of certain
difficulties that stand in the way of their marriage, attempts
to elope with her. Her brother comes on the scene, and there
is an affray, in which the Sub-Inspector is killed. Young
MacDermott is tried and publicly hanged. This is the mere
outline. More interesting is the background of Irish rural
life, seen in its comic and quaint aspect, by an observant and
not wholly unsympathetic Englishman. The portrait of the grand
old Father John M’Grath is most life-like and engaging, but
the pictures of low life in the village and among the illicit
stills is vulgar in tone and the humour somewhat coarse. The
book is spoken of by a competent critic, Sir G. O. Trevelyan,
as in some respects the Author’s best. The Author himself
considers this his best plot. It has been spoken of as “one of
the most melancholy books ever written.”
⸺ THE KELLYS AND THE O’KELLYS. (_Chapman & Hall_). [1848]. New ed., 1907.
(_Lane_). 1_s._
Scene: Dunmore, Co. Galway, at the time of O’Connell’s trial,
1844. Mainly a love story of the upper classes. Some clever
portraits, _e.g._, Martin Kelly, the Widow Kelly, and the
hero, Frank O’Kelly, Lord Ballindine. Picture of hard-riding,
hard-drinking, landlord class. A much more cheerful story than
the preceding. It is fresh and genuinely humorous, and the
human interest is very strong. The seventh London ed. appeared
in 1867.
⸺ CASTLE RICHMOND. Pp. 474. (_Harper, Ward, Lock_). 2_s._ [1860]. Fifth
London ed., 1867. Still in print.
Scene: Co. Cork during the Famine years, 1847, and following,
with which it deals fully. Tale of two old Irish families.
The plot is commonplace enough but redeemed by great skill in
the treatment, by admirable delineation of character, and by
the drawing of the background. Absolutely cool and free from
partisanship, he yet draws such a picture of those dreadful
times as, in days to come, it will be difficult to accept as
free from exaggeration. It is a graphic and terrible picture.
The noble character of Owen Fitzgerald is finely drawn. There
are touches of pleasant humour and of satire.
⸺ PHINEAS FINN, the Irish Member. (_Bell_). 1866.
⸺ PHINEAS REDUX. (_Bell_). 1874.
A study of political personalities. The scene is London, and
the story is little, if at all, concerned with Ireland.
⸺ THE LAND LEAGUERS. Three Vols. (_Chatto & Windus_). 1883.
Story of an English Protestant family who buy a property
and settle in Galway. The book was never finished, and has,
perhaps, little interest as a novel. But the life and incidents
of the period are well rendered, notably the trials of people
who are boycotted. Much sympathy with the people is displayed
by the Author, and, on the whole, fair views of the faults and
misunderstandings on both sides are expressed. The plot turns
on the enmity of a peasant towards his landlord, whom he tries
to injure in every way. The landlord’s little son is the only
witness against the peasant. The child is murdered for telling
what he knows. There is some harsh criticism of Catholic
priests.
=TROTTER, John Bernard.= 1775-1818. Of a Co. Down family, and brother of
E. S. Ruthven, M.P. for Dublin. Ed. T.C.D.; B.A., 1795. Barrister, and
private secretary to Charles James Fox. Died in great poverty in Cork.
His _Walks in Ireland_ is his best known work, though he wrote many other
works, literary and political.
⸺ STORIES FOR CALUMNIATORS. Two Vols. (DUBLIN: _Fitzpatrick_). 1809.
“Interspersed with remarks on the disadvantages, misfortunes,
and habits of the Irish.” Dedicated to Lord Holland. A
remarkable book in many ways. Through the medium of three
stories, largely based on fact, the Author sets forth instances
of the sad aftermath of the rebellion, illustrating the tragic
consequences that may ensue if those in authority listen to
the voice of slander and condemn on suspicion. The stories
are told to a Mr. Fitzmaurice by persons related to the
victims, and Mr. F.’s own romance is interwoven with the tale.
Incidentally the Author gives his own views on Irish politics,
views full of the most kindly tolerance and of true patriotic
feeling without _ráiméis_. He seems not a Catholic, but is most
friendly towards Catholics. He is strongly in favour of the
Irish language, of land reform, and of the higher education of
women—astonishing views considering the period.
=TURK, S. A.=
⸺ THE SECRET OF CARRICFEARNAGH CASTLE. (_Washbourne_). 2_s._ [1912].
Second ed., 1915.
“It has a somewhat sensational plot; but it certainly displays
the deep piety, patriotism, and Christian charity of Erin’s
sons and daughters.”—(Publ.).
=TYNAN, Katherine; Mrs. H. A. Hinkson.= Born in Dublin, 1861, ed.
Dominican Convent, Drogheda. Lived for many years in England, but now
resides in Co. Mayo. Her stories aim at the purely romantic. As they are
not concerned with the seamy side of life, their atmosphere is almost
entirely happy and ideal. They are never morbid nor depressing. They do
not preach, and are not of the goody-goody type. The style is pleasant
and chatty, with plenty of colour, often full of the poet’s vivid sense
impressions. The tone is thoroughly Catholic, the sentiment Irish.
Mrs. Hinkson is a very prolific writer. Besides the novels mentioned,
and several volumes of poems, she has written several novels which are
not concerned with Ireland, _e.g._, _A Red Red Rose_, _The Luck of the
Fairfaxes_, _Dick Pentreath_, _For Maisie_, _Mary Gray_, &c. In choice of
subject she has made a speciality of broken-down gentlefolk, and often
introduces Quakers into her stories.
⸺ A CLUSTER OF NUTS. Pp. 242. (_Lawrence & Bullen_). 1894.
Seventeen short sketches written for English periodicals.
Subject: daily life of the peasantry—the village “characters,”
a spoilt priest, the migrating harvesters, and a pathetic
picture of a poor old village priest. Charming descriptions of
scenery, not too long drawn out. Much tender and unaffected
pathos.
⸺ AN ISLE IN THE WATER. Pp. 221. (_Black_). 1895.
Fifteen short pieces collected out of various English
periodicals. The scene of about half of them is an unnamed
island off the West coast. The scene of the other is Achill.
The title does not cover the rest. Sketches chiefly of
peasant life, in which narrative (sometimes told in dialogue)
predominates. The stories are very varied. There are pathetic
sketches of young girls: “Mauryeen,” “Katie,” “How Mary came
Home”; tales of the supernatural, such as “The Death Spancel”;
“A Rich Woman,” a racy story of legacy hunting; while heroic
self-sacrifice is depicted in “The Man who was hanged” and “A
Solitary.” The last two pieces in the book are not stories:
they are musings or subjective impressions.
⸺ THE WAY OF A MAID. Pp. 300. (_Lawrence & Bullen_). 1895.
Domestic and social life in Coolevara, a typical Irish country
town, chiefly among Catholic middle class folk. It is a simple
and pleasant story of love and marriage with a happy ending.
⸺ A LAND OF MIST AND MOUNTAIN. Pp. 195. (_Catholic Truth Society_). 1895.
Short sketches of Irish life written with the Author’s
accustomed tenderness and simple pathos. Noteworthy are the
tales that contain Jimmy, the Wicklow peasant lad, who loves
all animals; the prodigal who returns after twenty years, and
the exiles Giuseppe and Beppo, in their queer little Dublin
shop. Real persons—Rose Kavanagh, Ellen O’Leary, and Sarah
Atkinson—are introduced in a fictitious setting.
_The Land I Love Best_ is another series of eight tales issued
by the same publishers about 1898. 200 pages.
⸺ THE DEAR IRISH GIRL. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ (CHICAGO: _McClurg_). 1.50.
Motherless, and an only child, Biddy O’Connor brings herself
up in a big, lonely Dublin house. Dr. O’Connor lives amid his
memories and his books. Biddy is a winsome girl, and keeps
the reader’s heart from the time we first meet her with the
homeless dogs of Dublin as her favourite companions to the day
when she weds the master of Coolbawn. The chief charm of the
book lies in the picture of life amid the splendid scenery
of Connaught. The book has a pleasant atmosphere of bright
simplicity and quick mirthfulness. The SPECTATOR calls it
“fresh, unconventional, and poetic.”
⸺ SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. Pp. 310. (_Smith, Elder_). (CHICAGO: _McClurg_).
1.50. 1899.
Three delightful girls of a class which the Author delights to
picture—impoverished gentry and their love affairs. The minor
characters, servants, village people, &c., are very humorous
and true to life. In this story the course of true love is by
no means smooth, but all is well at the last. The scene varies
between “Carrickmoyle” and London.
⸺ A GIRL OF GALWAY. (_Blackie_). 5_s._ Handsome gift-book binding. 1900.
She stays with her grandfather, a miserly old recluse living
in the wilds of Connemara, seeing nobody but his agent, an
unscrupulous fellow, in whom he has perfect confidence. A love
affair is soon introduced. It seems hopeless at first, but
turns out all right owing to a strange unlooked for event.
Pleasant and faithful picture of Connemara life.
⸺ THREE FAIR MAIDS. Pp. 381. (_Blackie_). 6_s._ [1900]. (N.Y.:
_Scribner_). 1.50. Twelve illustr. by G. Demain Hammond. 1909.
The three daughters of Sir Jasper Burke are of the reduced
county family class, about which the Author loves to write. The
expedient of receiving paying guests results in matrimony for
the three girls. With this simple plot there are all the things
that go to make Katharine Tynan’s works delightful reading:
insight into character, impressions of Irish life, lovable
personalities of many types.
⸺ A DAUGHTER OF THE FIELDS. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ (CHICAGO: _McClurg_).
1900.
“Another gracious Irish girl. Well educated, and brought
up to a refined and easy life, she applies herself to the
drudgery of farm work rather than desert her toiling mother;
but the novelist finds her a husband and a more fortunate
lot.”—(_Baker_).
⸺ A UNION OF HEARTS. Pp. 296. (_Nisbet_). 2_s._ 6_d._ and 1_s._ 6_d._
_n.d._ [1900].
A typical example of Mrs. Hinkson’s stories. The main plot is
a simple, idyllic love-story. The hero, much idealized, is
an Englishman who tries to do good to his Irish tenants in
his own way, and hence incurs their hatred, for a time. The
heroine is an heiress come of a good old stock. Several of the
characters are cleverly sketched: old Miss Lucy Considine and
her antiquarian brother, in particular. Scenes of peasant life
act as interludes to the main action, which lies in county
family society. All the chief persons are Protestants, but the
religious element is quite eliminated from the book.
⸺ THAT SWEET ENEMY. (_Constable_). 6_s._ (PHILADELPHIA: _Lippincott_).
1.50. 1901.
“A sentimental story of two Irish girls, children of a decayed
house; their love affairs, the hindrance to their happiness,
and the matrimonial _dénouement_.”—(_Baker_).
⸺ A KING’S WOMAN. Pp. 155. (_Hurst & Blackett_). 6_d._ [1902]. 1905.
Told by Penelope Fayle, a young Quaker gentlewoman, a loyalist
or King’s woman, but sympathetic to the Irish. Scene: a
Leinster country house in 1798. No descriptions of the
fighting, but glimpses of the cruelty of Ancient Britons,
yeomanry, &c., and of the dark passions of the time. Racy,
picturesque style, with exciting incidents and dramatic
situations.
⸺ THE HANDSOME QUAKER. Pp. 252. (_A. H. Bullen_). 1902.
Eighteen exquisite little stories and sketches dealing, nearly
all, with the lives of the poorest peasantry. They have all the
Author’s best qualities.
⸺ LOVE OF SISTERS. Pp. 344. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ [1902]. Third ed.
1908.
The scene varies between the West of Ireland and Dublin.
A love-story, in which the central figures are Phillippa
Featherstonhaugh and her sister, Colombe: a contrast in
character, but each lovable in her own way. The plot turns on
the unselfish devotion of the former, who, believing that her
lover has transferred his affections to her sister, heroically
stands aside. We shall not reveal the _dénouement_. The minor
characters are capital, all evidently closely copied from life.
There are the elderly spinsters, Miss Finola and Miss Peggy,
and quite a number of charming old ladies, the country priest
and the sisters’ bustling, philanthropic mother, always in a
whirl of correspondence about her charities, and others equally
interesting.
⸺ A DAUGHTER OF KINGS. (_Nash_). 6_s._ (N.Y.: _Benziger_). 1.25. 1903.
The daughter of a broken-down aristocratic county family is
obliged to take service as chaperon in an English family.
Careful study of girl’s lovable character. Contrast between the
pride and poverty of Witches’ Castle, Co. Donegal, and opulence
of English home.
⸺ THE HONOURABLE MOLLY. Pp. 312. (_Smith, Elder_). Second impression,
1903.
The Honourable Molly is of mixed Anglo-Irish aristocratic (her
father was a Creggs de la Poer) and Scoto-Irish middle class
origin (her mother’s people were O’Neills and Sinclairs).
She has two suitors, one is from her mother’s people, the
other is the heir to Castle Creggs and the title. Both are
eminently worthy of her hand. She finally chooses one,
after having accepted the other. Has all the sweetness and
femininity of Katherine Tynan’s work. Is frankly romantic but
not mawkish. There is no approach to a villain. There is some
quiet and good-natured satire of old-fashioned aristocratic
class-notions. The portraits of the two old maiden aunts are
very clever.
⸺ JULIA. Pp. 322. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ Second impression, 1904.
How a baseless slander nearly ruined the life of Julia, the
Cinderella of her family, how she was nearly lost to her lover,
and by what strange turns of fortune she was restored. The
chief characters belong to two branches of a Kerry family,
whose history is that of many another in Ireland. Julia’s
mother is a splendid type of the old-fashioned Irish matron.
There is touching pathos in the picture of the Grace family
(minor personages of the tale)—a mother’s absolute devotedness
to a pair of thankless and worthless daughters. The old parish
priest, too, is well drawn.
⸺ THE ADVENTURES OF ALICIA. (_White_). 6_s._ 1906.
“A characteristically winning story of a poor young Irish
girl, who had to serve English employers, but, in spite of
all temptations, remained true to her Irish lover.”—(_Press
Notice_).
⸺ THE STORY OF BAWN. Pp. 312. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ (CHICAGO:
_McClurg_). 1.50. 1906.
One of the Author’s prettiest stories. Family of high standing
falls into the meshes of money-lender. The daughter consents to
marry him—but the plot need not be revealed. The scene appears
to be Co. Kerry in the early ’sixties, but there seem to be
some anachronisms.
⸺ HER LADYSHIP. Pp. 305. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ (CHICAGO: _McClurg_).
1.25. Second impression, 1907.
Lady Anne Chute is mistress of a vast estate in Co. Kerry. From
the moment of her succession to the property she resolves to
act the part of Providence in her people’s lives. She sets
about improving their condition, founding industries, &c., and
with full success. This is the background to a love-story.
Old Miss Chenevix, once a “lady,” but now living almost on
the verge of starvation in an obscure quarter of Dublin, is
a pathetic figure. Pathetic also is the devotion of her old
servant to the fallen fortunes of the family. Then there is the
picture, drawn with exquisite sympathy, of the poor girl dying
of consumption, and of how her religion exalted and brightened
her last days. The descriptions or rather impressions of nature
which brighten the story are peculiarly vivid.
⸺ THE HOUSE OF THE CRICKETS. (_Smith, Elder_). 1908.
A story of Irish peasant farmer life. The heroine lives, with
her brothers and sisters, a life of abject slavery, ruled by a
tyrannical and puritanical father. In this wretched home she
and her brother, Richard, develop noble qualities of character
and mind. The members of the family are very life-like
portraits, and the picture of Irish life is drawn with much
care and skill.
⸺ MEN AND MAIDS. Pp. 294. (_Sealy, Bryers_). 3_s._ 6_d._ Illustr. by
Dorothea Preston. 1908.
A collection of short stories, chiefly thoroughly romantic
love-stories. “A Big Lie” is, however, of a different
character, and the Author has hardly ever written a more
delightful story.
⸺ PEGGY THE DAUGHTER. Pp. 335. (_Cassell_). 1909.
A romance of Ireland in early Victorian days. A young
spendthrift nobleman, a widower, runs away with Priscilla, a
Quakeress, and also an heiress. The description of the pursuit
is exciting and dramatic. The penalty of his deed is a long
imprisonment, from which he issues a sadder and wiser man.
Priscilla’s care of his little daughter, Peggy, in the meantime
is a pathetic story. The plot suggested by the attempted
abduction by Sir H. B. Hayes of the Quakeress, Miss Pike, of
Cork.
⸺ COUSINS AND OTHERS. Pp. 319. (_Laurie_). 1909.
Eleven stories. The title story, the longest (there are nine
chapters) tells how a shabby branch of an old Irish family
finally won recognition by means of a marriage with the
supposed heir and by the finding of certain old family papers.
Contains some goodnatured satire on the snobbishness of Irish
county society. One of the remaining stories is Irish in
subject. All show the Author’s best qualities—freshness, charm,
and cheerful optimism.
⸺ THE HANDSOME BRANDONS. (_Blackie_). 3_s._ 6_d._ New ed. Illustr. by G.
Demain Hammond.
How a marriage between scions of two ancient Irish houses heals
a long-standing feud.
⸺ THE HOUSE OF THE SECRET. Pp. 314. (_James Clarke_). 6_s._ 1910.
The story of Maeve Standish’s self-sacrifice in the
sorrow-shadowed home of her father’s old friend, Miss Henrietta
O’Neill, of her ultimate good fortune, and finally of her happy
marriage. The setting is entirely Irish.—(_Press Notice_).
⸺ HEART O’ GOLD; or, The Little Princess. Pp. 344. (_Partridge_). 3_s._
6_d._
Story of how Cushla MacSweeney and her sister, left as orphans,
are carried off from their tumbled-down Irish home and brought
up at Tunbridge Wells. How Cushla returns at twenty-one full
of dreams for the improvement of Ireland, and is aided in her
plans by a young man whom she afterwards marries. Full of the
Author’s interesting character-studies.
⸺ THE STORY OF CECILIA. Pp. 304. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ (N.Y.:
_Benziger_). 1.00. 1911.
Scene: Kerry and Dublin. Two stories, of mother and daughter,
Ciss and Cecilia, interwoven. Ciss’s fiancé is reported killed.
She loses her reason and persuades herself that a Dr. Grace,
who is of peasant extraction, is her lover come back. To save
her from the asylum Lord Dromore, her cousin and guardian,
has to consent unwillingly to the marriage. The absent
lover returns, but she does not meet him for twenty years.
Meanwhile Ciss’s mésalliance is causing trouble in the course
of Cecilia’s love for Lord Kilrush. But all ends happily. The
characters are mainly drawn from the denationalised Irish upper
classes. The story is told with much charm.
⸺ PRINCESS KATHARINE. Pp. 320. (_Ward_). 6_s._ 1912.
A girl educated much above her mother’s condition in life and
mixing in upper class society.
⸺ ROSE OF THE GARDEN. Pp. 312. (_Constable_). 1912.
The story of Lady Sarah Lennox (1745-1826) in the form of
fiction. A good many Irish members of the _beau monde_ appear
in the tale. It is not for young readers. See _The Life and
Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox_, edited by the Countess of
Ilchester and Lord Stavordale. Two vols. (_Murray_).
⸺ A SHAMEFUL INHERITANCE. Pp. 324. (_Cassell_). 6_s._ 1914.
“Katharine Tynan, in her gentle way, puts before us the growing
up of the boy Pat in ignorance of the disgrace (a jewel
robbery) of his mother and the suicide of his father, and the
effect upon him of the disclosure. A lovable and spiritual
Father Peter plays a leading part in it all.”—(T. LITT.
SUPPL.). Pat finds his mother in time to comfort her deathbed,
and in the end marries an old friend. Somewhat vague, and not
free from inconsistencies.
⸺ COUNTRYMEN ALL. Pp. 238. (_Maunsel_). 2_s._ 1915.
A volume of stories and sketches, very varied in its contents,
from well-told but rather unconvincing little melodramas like
“The Fox Hunter” and “John ’a Dreams” to very vivid glimpses
of life, _choses vues et vécues_. These show various sides
of Irish life and character; an unpleasant side in “The
Ruling Passion” (a woman discussing her own funeral with
her daughter), as well as the pleasant and lovable aspects.
“The Mother” and “The Mother of Jesus” are little studies of
exquisite tenderness. Several of the sketches are humorous,
for instance the weird episode, “Per istam sanctam unctionem,”
related by a priest. The scene of several seems to be the
neighbourhood of Dublin.
⸺ THE HOUSE OF THE FOXES. Pp. 307. (_Smith, Elder_). 6_s._ 1915.
The Turloughmores are overshadowed by a curse made long ago by
an old woman wounded to death by the hounds of a former Lord
T. when hunting. According to the curse, every head of the
house must die a violent death, in forewarning of which foxes
will be seen in twos and threes about the house for some time
before. The actual Lord T. is expected home from his yachting
cruise, his wife ever in dread of the doom. He is wrecked
and apparently lost, but Meg Hildebrand, who is staying at
the castle, discovers the almost dying lord in mysterious
circumstances. He dies in his bed, his heir is married into a
lucky house, and the curse is said to be lifted. Founded on
a legend (still current) of a well-known Irish family. Many
threads of various interest are woven into the tale.
⸺ MEN, NOT ANGELS, and Other Tales told to Girls. (_Burns & Oates_).
3_s._ 6_d._ Many full-p. illustr. 1915.