Appears to be largely autobiographical. A story of Land League days, full of incident. The interest chiefly turns on the interplay of plot and counterplot, in which the various parties—the moonlighters, the Castle, and Parnell’s followers—figure. The centre of all the plots is McGowan, the “Red Spy,” a secret service agent of the Castle. The scene shifts from America to Ireland—Dublin, Kildare, the Kerry border (good description), Lisdoonvarna. Types well studied—the genial landlord Col. O’Hara; the sporting squire Sir Thady Monroe; the weak-minded oppressor Sir Richard A⸺; the American journalist, &c. The “Red Spy” in real life was “Red Jim” McDermott.
LEPPER, J. H.
⸺ CAPTAIN HARRY. (Sealy, Bryers). 6d. 1908.
“Tale of Parliamentary Wars, introducing the principal characters who took part on the Royalist and the Parliamentary sides.”
⸺ FRANK MAXWELL. (Sealy, Bryers). 6d. Paper.
Adventures of an Irish Puritan planter’s son, who by an unlucky series of accidents finds himself on the royalist and Irish side just before the rebellion of 1641. The central incident of the story is the journey of one Hugh O’Donnell to Glasgow, where he meets Charles secretly, and is returning as Viceroy when he is wrecked, and Frank Maxwell along with him, on the coast of Antrim. The Irish are, on the whole, represented as rather bloodthirsty and barbaric, especially “Hugh O’Donnell.” A good “adventure” book.
LESTER, Edward.
⸺ THE SIEGE OF BODIKE: A Prophecy of Ireland’s Future. Pp. 140. (London: Heywood). 1886.
A political skit written from a strongly Tory standpoint, in which the Author tells us how he would deal with the Irish question. The time is 188-, yet an imaginary Fenian rebellion is described. Kilkenny falls into the hands of the enemy, and a bomb is dropped from a balloon on Bodike, a village in Kilkenny. The whole is wildly improbable, but it is probably meant to be so.
LETTS, W. M. A granddaughter of Alexander Ferrier, Esq., of Knockmaroon Park, Co. Dublin, where she spent many summers. She resides in Blackrock, Co. Dublin. Ed. at St. Anne’s, Abbots Bromley, and Alexandra College, Dublin. Has written Diana Dethroned, Christina’s Son, The Rough Way (Wells, Gardner), short Irish stories for children in the Month and other periodicals. She is coming to be very well known as a poet, and has written some plays for the Abbey Theatre.