George Moore (novelist)

George Augustus Moore (February 24, 1852 - January 21, 1933) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family, originally intended to be an artist, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s. There he befriended many of the leading French artists and writers of the day.

Dublin and the Celtic Revival

In 1901, Moore returned to Ireland to live in Dublin at the suggestion of his cousin and friend, Edward Martyn. Martyn had being involved in Ireland's cultural and dramatic movements for some years, and was working with Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats to establish the Irish Literary Theatre. Moore soon became deeply involved in this project and in the broader Irish Literary Revival. He had already written a play, The Strike at Arlingford (1893), which was produced by the Independent Theatre. His satirical comedy The Bending of the Bough (1900) was staged by the Irish Literary Theatre as was Diarmuid and Grania, co-written with Yeats, in 1901.

Related Topics:
1901 - Edward Martyn - Lady Gregory - W.B. Yeats - Irish Literary Theatre - Irish Literary Revival - 1893 - Independent Theatre - 1900

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He also published two books of prose fiction set in Ireland around this time, a second book of short stories, The Untilled Field (1903) and a novel, The Lake (1905). The stories in The Untilled Field, which deal with themes of clerical interference in the daily lives of the Irish peasantry and of emigration, were originally written to be translated into Irish to serve as models for other writers working in the language. Three of the translations were published in the New Ireland Review, but publication was then paused because of the anti-clericism evident in the stories. The entire collection was translated by Tadhg Ó Donnchadha and Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin and published in a parallel-text edition by the Gaelic League as An-tÚr-Ghort in 1902. Moore then further revised the texts for the English edition. These stories were influenced by Turgenev's A Sportsman's Sketches. They are generally recognised as representing the birth of the Irish short story as a literary genre and are clear forerunners of Joyce's Dubliners collection, which is concerned with similarly quotidian themes but in an urban setting.

Related Topics:
1903 - 1905 - Emigration - Irish - Anti-clericism - Tadhg Ó Donnchadha - Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin - Gaelic League - 1902 - Turgenev

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In 1903, Moore declared himself to be a Protestant in a letter to the Irish Times newspaper. While living in Dublin, he also published another book on art, Reminiscences of the Impressionist Painters (1906). Moore remained in Dublin until 1911. He published an entertaining, gossipy, three-volume memoir of his time there under the collective title Hail and Farewell (1914). Moore himself said of these memoirs: "One half of Dublin is afraid it will be in the book, and the other is afraid that it won't."

Related Topics:
1903 - Protestant - Irish Times - 1906 - 1911 - 1914

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