⸺ THE ORIGINAL WOMAN. Pp. 343. (Hutchinson). 1904.
Thesis: whatever culture may have done for the modern woman, she reverts to the instincts of the original woman in the crisis of a life-decision. Scene: first, country house in Galway. The heroine is a typical modern girl of the best kind. The hero, who is also the villain, is a singularly attractive personality, the complicated workings of whose mind the Author delights to analyse. Later the scene changes to Martinique. Here an element of the supernatural and uncanny enters the story. The style is witty, the character-drawing very clever.
⸺ CAPTAIN LATYMER. (Cassell). 6s. Also 6d. ed. 1908.
A sequel to Castle Omeragh. The eldest Fawcett is condemned by Cromwell to the West Indies, but escapes along with the daughter of Hugh O’Neill, nephew of Owen Roe. There are exciting adventures. The book, as does Castle Omeragh, gives a faithful picture of the times.
⸺ THE ULSTERMAN: a Story of To-day. Pp. 323. (Hutchinson). 6s. 1914.
A very candid, plainspoken, and judicious picture of life in North-East Ulster. Pictures what the Times Lit. Suppl. calls “the unsympathetic materialism, the drab ugliness of a life which finds its chief recreation in religious strife, and much of its consolation in strong drink.” But dwells upon the sterling good qualities that go to counterbalance these others. Opens in a mid-Antrim town on the eve of “the 12th.” Story of a bigoted Ulster mill-owner whose sons eventually marry into Catholic families of a lower class. Not political.
⸺ THE LADY OF THE REEF. Pp. 348. (Hutchinson). 6s. 1915.
A young English artist in Paris suddenly inherits a property in North Co. Down, and arrives to find himself in a puzzling environment. Cleverly sketched characters are introduced—MacGowan, the pushful attorney, the excellent parson Gilliland, and the dipsomaniac captain. Then there is a wreck, a rescue, and enter the “Lady of the Reef.” The sequel tells whether she accepts the artist or not.—(I.B.L. and T. Lit. Suppl.).
MOORE, George. A distinguished poet, novelist, dramatist, and art critic. Was born in Ireland, 1857, of a Catholic family of Co. Mayo, many of whose members were distinguished nationalists. He has produced some twenty books. Much of Mr. Moore’s education has been acquired in France, with the result that, as Dr. William Barry says, “he is excessively, provokingly un-English.” At the same time he has little but scorn for things Irish. He has, as he tells us in Confessions of a Young Man, abandoned the Catholic Church. He may be said to be at war with all prevailing types of religion and current codes of morality. His books bear abundant evidence of the fact. Many of them treat of most unsavoury topics, and that with naturalistic freedom and absence of reserve. They were consequently excluded from lending libraries such as Mudie’s and Smith’s. Many critics rank Mr. Moore very high as a psychologist and as a critic. An interesting article on him will be found in G. K. Chesterton’s Heretics. His non-Irish stories include Evelyn Innes, Sister Theresa, Esther Waters, A Mummer’s Wife, Celibates, Vain Fortune, A Mere Accident, &c. Within the last two or three years he has published at intervals three vols. of reminiscences entitled Ave, Salve, Vale, in which no privacies are respected and which in other respects resemble his novels.