Gerald O'Donovan: A Life: 1871-1942

Author:   John F. Ryan
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
ISBN:  

9781800854604


Pages:   304
Publication Date:   01 January 2023
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Gerald O'Donovan: A Life: 1871-1942


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Overview

This is the first full-length study of the life and work of novelist Gerald O’Donovan (1871–1942), a Catholic priest and social and cultural activist who, having abandoned the priesthood, became a writer and publisher. As a priest in Loughrea, Co. Galway, he was a very public figure in Irish life in several different areas. He was friendly with W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and George Moore and actively promoted the ‘Celtic Revival’. He was also a friend of Douglas Hyde and Sir Horace Plunkett and, for a number of years, he was a national figure in their respective organizations, the Gaelic League and the Co-operative Movement. After his marriage to Beryl Verschoyle, he moved to England and subsequently published six novels, the best-known and most controversial of which was Father Ralph (1913), a portrait of the artist as a priest. He also spent time working in the British Department of Propaganda under Lord Northcliffe, where H.G. Wells was one of his colleagues. This biography of an important and strangely neglected figure allows us new insights into a whole range of interesting cultural moments in twentieth-century Irish life, including the beginnings of literary modernism, the flourishing of the Irish literary revival and the emergence of a dissident strand within the Catholic clergy. Based on a rich and previously untapped array of archival material in Ireland, Britain and the US, the book provides both a much-needed reassessment of O'Donovan's work and also a history of Irish writing during those early decades of the twentieth century that saw the development of a new and powerful national literature.

Full Product Details

Author:   John F. Ryan
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Liverpool University Press
ISBN:  

9781800854604


ISBN 10:   1800854609
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   01 January 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Reviews

‘[A] judicious, factual narrative of a fascinatingly original life… this will be the standard book on Gerald O’Donovan… a thing of wonder.’ Adrian Frazier, Irish Times


Author Information

John F. Ryan is an independent scholar specializing in the life and work of Gerald O'Donovan.

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