Representative Irish Tales

This anthology of Irish fiction edited by W.B. Yeats was first published in 1891, but despite its significance in his early career, was out of print for nearly eighty years. Representative Irish Tales is a fine selection of Irish fiction – as representative of Yeats himself as it is of Irish novelists. His introductory commentary and his editorial emendations provide an interesting perspective on an influential, but relatively unknown phase of his early work. Novelists represented are: Maria Edgeworth, John & Michael Banim, William Carleton, Samuel Lover, William Maginn, T. Crofton Croker, Gerald Griffin, Charles Lever, Charles Kickham, and Miss Rosa Mulholland. Representative Irish Tales was first published in 1891 but was soon out of print - until the present edition in 1979. This printing (1991) marks the centenary of the work. Mary Helen Thuente provides a fascinating and useful foreword setting the tales in the context of Yeats's own writing.