Catholic Fiction and Social Reality in Ireland, 1873-1922

(Hardback)

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The late-19th and early-20th century was a key period of cultural transition. Fiction was often used in plainly partisan or polemical fashion to advance changes in Irish society. Murphy explores the outlook of certain important social classes during this time frame through an assessment of Irish Catholic fiction. This study also provides a context for understanding the works of canonical authors such as Joyce and George Moore by discussing them in light of the almost forgotten writing from which they emerged - the several hundred novels which were written during the period, many of them by women writers.

Reviews

"The symbiotic nature of the relationship between literature and history in Ireland has provided James H. Murphy with a wonderful opportunity of which he has taken full advantage. In this volume he has presented us with a perceptive analysis of how literature and the social structure integrate to produce a Catholic fiction that allows for special insight into the Irish historical process between 1872 and 1922, and the result is a most innovative and creative effort in rendering art as evidence."-Emmet Larkin Professor of British and Irish History The University of Chicago
"The study of modern Irish literature written in English has long emphasized its Anglo-Irish and Protestant traditions, James Joyce's critique of Catholicism only further solidifying the notion that Irish artists mostly sought distance from the Church of Rome. Murphy provides a useful reminder of the large number of writers in the late-19th and early-20th centuries whose fiction advanced and advocated the social experience of Irish Catholics...[H]is introduction to and tabulation of these works highlights a badly neglected area in Irish studies."-Choice
[A]n extremely useful if brief and tantalizing view of the cultural foothills where the Irish majority dwelt....In this short, sharp and very expensive study, Murphy has re-opened a forgotten English-speaking Catholic subculture. His novelists played a significant role in the lives of many Catholics scattered across the world, not least across the Irish Sea.-The Heythrop Journal: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy and Theology
[A]n important contribution to Irish literary and intellectual history. [Murphy's] extensive research, intelligently analyzed, fills a gap resulting from scholarly concentration on the Literary Revival to the exclusion of many writers from the majority community.-Victorian Studies
It is hard to see how modern Irish fiction can be studied in the future without reflecting the knowledge concentrated in these pages.-James Joyce Literary Supplement
The study of modern Irish literature written in English has long emphasized its Anglo-Irish and Protestant traditions, James Joyce's critique of Catholicism only further solidifying the notion that Irish artists mostly sought distance from the Church of Rome. Murphy provides a useful reminder of the large number of writers in the late-19th and early-20th centuries whose fiction advanced and advocated the social experience of Irish Catholics...[H]is introduction to and tabulation of these works highlights a badly neglected area in Irish studies.-Choice
"An extremely useful if brief and tantalizing view of the cultural foothills where the Irish majority dwelt....In this short, sharp and very expensive study, Murphy has re-opened a forgotten English-speaking Catholic subculture. His novelists played a significant role in the lives of many Catholics scattered across the world, not least across the Irish Sea."-The Heythrop Journal: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy and Theology
"An important contribution to Irish literary and intellectual history. Murphy's extensive research, intelligently analyzed, fills a gap resulting from scholarly concentration on the Literary Revival to the exclusion of many writers from the majority community."-Victorian Studies
"[A]n extremely useful if brief and tantalizing view of the cultural foothills where the Irish majority dwelt....In this short, sharp and very expensive study, Murphy has re-opened a forgotten English-speaking Catholic subculture. His novelists played a significant role in the lives of many Catholics scattered across the world, not least across the Irish Sea."-The Heythrop Journal: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy and Theology
"[A]n important contribution to Irish literary and intellectual history. [Murphy's] extensive research, intelligently analyzed, fills a gap resulting from scholarly concentration on the Literary Revival to the exclusion of many writers from the majority community."-Victorian Studies
"It is hard to see how modern Irish fiction can be studied in the future without reflecting the knowledge concentrated in these pages."-James Joyce Literary Supplement

Author Bio

JAMES H. MURPHY is Lecturer in English at All Hallows College, Dublin. He is editor of No Bland Facility (1991), New Beginnings in Ministry (1992) and Nos Autem: Castleknock College and Its Contribution (1996) and coeditor of Separate Spheres Gender and Nineteenth-Century Ireland (forthcoming, 1997).