Parnell and His Island

George Moore (1852-1933) was born at Moore Hall in Co. Mayo. He settled in Paris in 1873, first working as an artist and then as a writer, producing a prodigious output of novels, short stories, plays, memoirs, journalism and essays and became a leading realist writer. Apart from ten years in Dublin, Moore spent most of his life in England. Carla King lectures at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin. She is the editor of Michael Davitt: Collected Writings (2001), of Michael Davitt's Jottings in Solitary for Classics in Irish History (2003) and is writing a biography on the last twenty years of Davitt's life.

• Introduction by Carla King; Dublin: The Castle, Shelbourne Hotel, Kildare Street Club, Mrs Rusville; An Irish country house; The house of an Irish poet; The landlord; The tenant farmer; The priest; The patriot; A castle of yesterday; A castle of today; An eviction; A hunting breakfast; Conclusion; Editor's notes

"Moore's fluent style and judicious ordering of his material make Parnell and His Island a very readable book. His beloved desolate landscape of lake and bog are a lyrical backdrop gripping documents that merit a place among 'Classics of Irish History'. Journal of Irish Studies, Japan 2005 "University College Dublin's 'Classics of Irish History' has established itself as a pleasing and important series ... King's edition of George Moore's Parnell and His Island combines a well-known Irish writer with a more elusive example of his work ... conforms to the attractive format of the series; the editing is exemplary." Irish Studies Review 13 (4) 2005 "offers a new opportunity to reassess this much maligned but crucial text within Moore's writing." English Literature in Transition 49 (4) 2006 "Written in his combative and naturalistic style, it owes something in its approach to Balzac's Les Paysans ... Carla King's Introduction and detailed notes historicize this work, identify the passages that were suppressed as too inflammatory or offensive in the original publication, and establish the place this work holds in Moore's artistic development." Irish Literary Supplement Spring 2006 "Elegantly produced with an attractive cover and illustrations, and a very useful biographical note listing major sources for Parnell's life, th book, like the work of the Parnell Society itself, achieves an impressive blend of scholarship and accessibility and will be of value both to historians of the period and the interested general reader." The Irish Book Review Autumn/Winter 2006 "University College Dublin Press has now published over thirty 'Classics of Irish History'. These contemporary accounts by well known personalities of historical events and attitudes have an immediacy that conventional histories do not have. Introductions by modern historians provide additional historical background and, with hindsight, objectivity." Books Ireland Nov 2007 "Scholars of nineteenth-century Irish and Irish-American politics should reacquaint themselves with these classics, part of a long running and immensely useful series from University College Dublin Press." Irish Literary Supplement Fall 2008