[11] I have not been able to ascertain whether this novel was ever reprinted in volume form from the periodical in which it appeared as a serial.
— DENIS TRENCH. Pp. 432. (Alston Rivers). 6s. 1911.
Denis and his sister on their mother’s death are left in doubt about the character and identity of their father, whom they had seen only in their infancy, and who, as a matter of fact, had left his wife in order to become a Roman Catholic priest. This priest acts as a kind of providence to his two children, and reveals himself only on his death bed. The Authoress seems quite unacquainted with Catholic practice, but does not depict it in a hostile spirit. The scene is partly in Ireland, but the only trace of Irish interest is an occasional reference to a mysterious quality in the Celtic blood of the hero and heroine, and the character of the poor girl Stella Delaney, whom Denis marries.
— A FAERY LAND FORLORN. Pp. 312. (Alston Rivers). 6s. 1912.
Life among better-class Protestant folk in a little seaside town in the S. of Ireland. The main interest is furnished by the sad love story of Evelyn Eyre. Mr. Eyre, gentle and bookloving, and Capt. Donovan, given to drink and a tyrant in his family, are neighbours and close friends till a misunderstanding brings estrangement and leads to a tragedy, resulting in the separation—for ever, as it proves—of Evelyn and her lover Terence Donovan. The story is wholesome and human and free from religious or other bias. Aunt Kitty, a lovable old maid, provides an element of humour.
— BURNT FLAX. Pp. 319. (Mills & Boon). 6s. 1914.
The Land League agitation from landlord standpoint. Excellent but over-firm landlord, hired agitator, attempt on landlord’s life. The rent-payers are brutally murdered by leaguers, who are represented as drunken and credulous. There is some good character drawing: Tinsy O’Halloran the half-witted boy, is original: Father O’Riordan is represented as a good sensible priest. The brogue is travestied.
— THE IRISH DOVE; or, Faults on Both Sides. Pp. 206. (Dublin: Robertson). 1849.
By the Author of Rosa, the Work Girl. Helen Wilson, whose mother was Irish, inherits an estate in Kerry. After years of residence in India and then in England, she comes to live in Ireland, grows to love the people, and spends what is left of her failing life in teaching the natives the New Testament in Irish. The interest of the book lies in its picture of and apology for, the attempt made (chiefly by “The Irish Society”) in the first half of the 19th century to convert the Irish to Protestantism through the medium of the Irish language. The witness it gives to the bitterly anti-Irish feeling prevailing in England at the time is interesting. The peasantry is represented as debased and priest-ridden, but their condition is ascribed in part to English hostility and to absenteeism.
— GRANIA WAILE. Pp. 285, large print. (Unwin). Frontispiece and map. 1895.
A fanciful story written around the early life and after-career of the O’Malley Sea-queen. Her robbing, when only a young girl, of the eagle’s nest, her desperate sea-fights, and her many other adventures make pleasant reading. The atmosphere of the period is well brought out. But few of the incidents narrated are historical facts.
— TRUE TO THE WATCHWORD. Pp. 299. (Warne). 3s. 6d. Eight illustr. 1902.
A spirited account of the siege of Derry from the point of view of the besieged. Full of hairbreadth escapes and of desperate encounters with the Irishry, who are spoken of throughout as ferocious savages. Apart from this last point there is no noteworthy falsification of history. For boys.
— THE KING’S SIGNET. (Blackie, and U.S.A.: Scribner).
France in the days of Madame de Maintenon, and Ireland during Williamite wars. B. of the Boyne described. Juvenile.
— THE FORTUNE TELLER’S INTRIGUE. Three Vols. (Dublin: McGlashan). 1847.
“Or, Life in Ireland before the Union, a tale of agrarian outrage.” An unusually objectionable and absurd libel on the priests and people of Ireland. The latter are represented as slavishly submissive to the former, who are spoken of as “walking divinities.” The priests attend their dupes at their execution for agrarian crimes, telling them that they are martyrs for the faith. The scene is Co. Clare.
The Author, an Englishman, and originally a private soldier, owned and edited the Fermanagh Mail for about forty years.
— HONOR O’HARA. Three Vols. (Longmans). [1826]. American ed., Harper, 1827. Two Vols.
The scene is laid in the N. of England, and the book has no relation to Ireland except that the heroine is supposed to be of Irish origin.
— THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY. Pp. 350. (London). New ed., 1839.
Described by the Author as “a harmless romance, which, without aiming to inculcate any great moral lesson, still endeavours to draw amiable portraits of virtue.”—(Pref.). An old-fashioned novel in the early Victorian sentimental manner. The plot is laid chiefly in Killarney (of which there is some description) and Dublin, at the time of the earlier Napoleonic wars, when Dublin had its parliament and was the centre of fashion. The plot is intricate, but turns chiefly on the mischances and misunderstandings that keep apart the hero, Felix Charlemont, and the heroine, Rose de Blaquière. This latter name was the title of later editions of this book, e.g. (London: C. H. Clare), 1856.
— NELLY CAREW. Two Vols. (Saunders & Otley). Engraved frontisp. 1859.
The heroine, daughter of an Irish landlord, is driven by the scheming of a crafty French stepmother (once her governess) into marriage with an Irish roué, and leads a life of bitter humiliation. But her honour is stainless through it all, and there is a happy ending. Characters (e.g., Larry McSwiggan) are for the most part capitally drawn. The moral is good. The brogue is well done. This Author, a niece of the Countess of Blessington, wrote also Evelyn Forrester, 1856, and The Foresters, 1857.
— BONNIE DUNRAVEN: a Story of Kilcarrick. Two Vols. (589 pp.). (Remington). 1881.
A very sympathetic and pleasant love story of modern life in Co. Cork. The characters are thoroughly natural and human, and, moreover, thoroughly Irish. Conversations good. But perhaps the chief merit of the story is its faithful reproduction of South of Ireland “atmosphere,” especially by word-pictures of Southern scenes—the coasts, the Blackwater, Mount Mellaray. Was highly praised by The Athenæum, The Academy, and by the Catholic Press.—(I.M.).
— THE HEIR OF LISCARRAGH. (Art and Book Co.). 1892.
A story in which the romantic elements are very strong.
— TRACKED. (“Ireland’s Own” Library). 6d. Paper covers. 1914.
A wholesome and pleasant story of unrequited love and of jealousy. Scene: Innishowen (Co. Donegal). A well-worked out plot, with good descriptions of scenery. Peasants depicted with sympathy and understanding.
— PADDY. (Sealy, Bryers). 1s. Twenty coloured illustrs.
Paddy’s dreams and adventures in Celtic Fairyland.
— LE DOYEN DE KELLERINE. Histoire morale composée sur les mémoires d’une 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.
— CANDLE AND CRIB. Pp. 42. 12mo. (Maunsel). 1s. 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). 6s. 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.
— THE CROSS AND SHAMROCK. Pp. 240. (Duffy). 2s. (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.
— IN THE DEVIL’S ALLEY. Pp. 262. (Art and Book Co.). 3s. 6d. 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.
— SAVOURNEEN DHEELISH; or, One True Heart. 16mo. (London: Henderson), 1s. [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). 1s. [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.
— 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).
— 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.
— SIR LUDAR. Pp. 343. (R.T.S.). Seven illustr. by Alfred Pearse. [1889]. Cheap reprints (“Leisure Hour” Office), 6d., 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.
— THE BRACKNELS: a Family Chronicle. Pp. 304. (Arnold). 6s. 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). 6s. 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). 6s. 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.).
— 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). 6s. [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). 6s. 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.
— CELTIC FOLK-LORE, Welsh and Manx. Two Vols. Pp. xlvi. + 718. (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 10s. 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.
— 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). 6s. [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). 6d. 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.
— HUSBAND AND LOVER. Pp. 304. (Swift). 6s. 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.
— 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). 6s. 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.
— 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.
— JOURNEYINGS WITH JERRY THE JARVEY. (Smith, Elder). 6s. 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.
— 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.
— 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.
— 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.
— 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.
— MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC RACE. Pp. ix. + 457. (Harrap). 7s. 6d. 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). 5s. 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.
— THE LAST MONARCH OF TARA. Pp. 311. (Gill). 2s. [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). 2s. 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). 6d. 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.”
— A TASTE OF QUALITY. Pp. 319. (Long). 6s. 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.
— 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.