Seumas O'Kelly

George Brandon Saul

1971
79 pages
ISBN 0-8387-7765-1
Irish Writers Series

Seumas O'Kelly is another contribution to the Irish Writers Series. These monographs have been designed to treat in individual volumes the significant Anglo-Irish writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. When complete the series will constitute a history of modern Anglo-Irish literature, encompassing discussions of more than 50 writers.

Seumas O'Kelly was a poet, dramatist, journalist and editor, reviewer, and spinner of tales who, in his short lifetime, had success and influence. Now, if recalled at all, his name is associated with only one tale, the deservedly famous Weaver's Grave, which unquestionably overshadows most of his other work. Dr. Saul's study reveals a considerable body of half-forgotten writing quite, or almost, as significant as that tale, and has, as a special feature, a detailed annotated bibliography of O'Kelly's work.

This monograph, largely based on research carried out in Ireland on a grant from the University of Connecticut and with the cooperation of O'Kelly's nephew, represents O'Kelly as a neglected but important contributor to the Irish Literary Renaissance. Readers who ponder the material examined here are likely to conclude that O'Kelly enriched both Irish fiction and Irish drama in notable degree.

About the author:

Born in Shoemakersville, Pa., of Irish and Pennsylvania-Dutch stock, George Brandon Saul earned his A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, and is Professor Emeritus of English and the University of Connecticut. He has done research in Ireland and has won several prizes for his poetry, but the bulk of his scholarly writing has been devoted to Anglo-Irish literature and post-Victorian poetry. He has been editor of The Age of Yeats and Owls' Watch (short stories), has contributed to Collier's Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, and has been widely anthologized. Author of almost forty books and several hundred poems, articles, reviews, plays, and short stories, he is also a composer for the piano. Dr. Saul has two sons, one daughter, and five grandchildren.