What began simply in Ireland as entertainment and communication through the spoken word soon grew into an extraordinary literary form unmatched in any other country. The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories triumphantly demonstrates the development of the s
Set in Ireland prior to its achieving legislative independence from Britain in 1782, Castle Rackrent tells the story of three generations of an estate--owning family as seen through the eyes—and as told in the voice—of their longtime servant, Thady Qu
Thady Quirk, devoted steward to the decaying estate of the Rackrent family, narrates a riotous story of four generations of a dying dynasty in Castle Rackrent (1800). Thady will defend his masters to the end, but eventually his naivety and blind loyalty c
When Harry Ormond--an orphan--is involved in a near-fatal shooting, he is sent away to live with his wealthy yet neglectful guardian's kind cousin. Owning neither property nor a fortune, he's determined to succeed. One of Edgeworth's most famous novels, "
The lively comedy of this novel in which a young woman comes of age amid the distractions and temptations of London high society belies the challenges it poses to the conventions of courtship, the dependence of women, and the limitations of domesticity. C
Lord Colambre, the sensitive hero of the novel, finds that his mother Lady Clonbrony's attempts to buy her way into the high society of London are only ridiculed, while his father, Lord Clonbrony, is in serious debt as a result of his wife's lifestyle. Co
In Chloe Plus Olivia Lillian Faderman seeks no less than to radically redefine four centuries of lesbian literature, filling a need that has long been neglected: a literary anthology of lesbian writers over the past four centuries, with each piece set in
The shiftless Lord Glenthorn has money and a title but suffers from ennui—from boredom. When it is revealed to him that he is not, in fact, an Anglo-Irish earl, but the peasant Christy O’Donoghoe, he must face his changed circumstances in order to pro
