The Cock and Anchor

First published in 1845, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's The Cock and Anchor is one of the most interesting historical novels written in Ireland in the nineteenth century. It is many things: a record of the mores and manners of early eighteenth-century Ireland, a story of love struggling against the prejudices of class and religion, a penetrating moral study of crime and punishment, an engaging thriller. But first of all it is a full-bodied, energetic, lively picture of Dublin - its palaces and its inns, its streets, its people, its way of life. Written in the early years of Le Fanu's career as a novelist, it provides an exciting introduction to the work of one the most intriguing novelists of Victorian Ireland. The Editor has provided notes, notes on the text and appendices which give the major and minor textual variants of the tale, and nearly thirty pages of contemporary reviews published in Ireland, England and Scotland.