Representative Irish Tales

First published in 1891, W B Yeats' anthology of nineteenth-century Irish fiction is of great significance in his early career. Yeats' selection is tailored to illustrate the ways that the principal Irish novelists represented Irish character; in particular how well they had depicted the Irish peasantry and their lives. His introductory commentary and editorial notes provide a fascinating perspective on this relatively unknown but influential phase of his work, while his observations on individual authors emphasises the idiosyncrasies of the novelists' lives as well as the qualities of their fiction.