John Wilson Foster

"Studies of Irish fiction are still scanty in contrast to studies of Irish poetry and drama. Attempting to fill a large critical vacancy, Irish Novels 1890-1940 is a comprehensive survey of popular and minor fiction (mainly novels) published between 1890 and 1922, a critical period in Irish cultural and political history. Since these sixty-odd writers have rarely, if ever, been discussed (Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker are the chief exceptions), the book opens up for further exploration a literary landscape, hitherto neglected, perhaps even unsuspected. This new landscape should alter the familiar perspectives on Irish literature of the period, first of all by adding genre fiction (science fiction, detective novels, ghost stories, New Woman fiction, and Great War novels) to the Irish syllabus, secondly by demonstrating the immense contribution of women writers to popular and mainstream Irish fiction."--Jacket.

This book presents three lectures delivered at NUI Maynooth in February 2001. Each lecture draws attention to a neglected episode in Irish cultural history that occurred between mid-Victorian and Edwardian times. The first lecture discusses the reaction in Ireland to one version of Darwinism; the second lecture addresses the building of the RMS Titanic; and the last lecture discusses the explosive growth in popularity of fieldwork in geology, botany, and zoology in Ireland. All contribute to the cultural history of science in Ireland. -- From Introduction

Measures 4 1/2 by 5 1/2. Relates the sinking of the Titanic. Begins: "it is a night of a thousand stars. The date, Sunday, April 14, 1912. The Time, 11:20 P.M. The Place, off Cape Race - that Cemetary of the Sea.