"Nearly every major figure of his era," writes his biographer Adrian Frazier, "worked with Moore, tangled with Moore, took his impression from, or left it on, George Moore." The Anglo-Irish novelist George Moore (1852-1933) espoused multiple identities. An agent provocateur whether as an art critic, novelist, short fiction writer or memoirist, always probing and provocative, often deliberately controversial, the personality at the core of this book invented himself as he reinvented his contemporary world. Moore's key role-as observer-participant and as satirist-within many literary and aesthetic movements at the end of the Victorian period and into the twentieth century owed considerably to the structures and manners of collaboration that he embraced. This book throws into relief the multiple ways in which Moore's work can serve as a counterbalance to established understandings of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century literary aesthetics both through innovative scholarly readings of Moore's work and through illustrative case studies of Moore's collaborative practice by making available, for the first time, two manuscript plays he co-authored with Pearl Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes) in 1894. It is this collaborative practice in conjunction with his cosmopolitan outlook that turned Moore into a key player in the fin-de-siecle formation of an international aesthetic community. This book explores the full range of Moore's collaborations and cultural encounters: from 1870s Paris art exhibitions to turn-of-the-century Dublin and London; from gossip to the culture of the barmaid; from the worship of Balzac to the fraught engagement with Yeats; from music to Celtic cultural translation. Moore's reputation as a collaborator with the most significant artistic individuals of his time in Britain, Ireland and France in particular, but also in Europe more widely, provides a rich exposition of modes of exchange and influence in the period, and a unique and distinctive perspective on Moore himself.

Nearly every major figure of his era, writes his biographer Adrian Frazier, worked with Moore, tangled with Moore, took his impression from, or left it on, George Moore. The Anglo-Irish novelist George Moore (1852 1933) espoused multiple identities. An agent provocateur whether as an art critic, novelist, short fiction writer or memoirist, always probing and provocative, often deliberately controversial, the personality at the core of this book invented himself as he reinvented his contemporary world. Moore s key role3/4as observer-participant and as satirist3/4within many literary and aesthetic movements at the end of the Victorian period and into the twentieth century owed considerably to the structures and manners of collaboration that he embraced. This book throws into relief the multiple ways in which Moore s work can serve as a counterbalance to established understandings of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century literary aesthetics both through innovative scholarly readings of Moore s work and through illustrative case studies of Moore s collaborative practice by making available, for the first time, two manuscript plays he co-authored with Pearl Craigie (John Oliver Hobbes) in 1894 and 1904 through 1906. It is this collaborative practice in conjunction with his cosmopolitan outlook that turned Moore into a key player in the fin-de-siecle formation of an international aesthetic community. This book explores the full range of Moore s collaborations and cultural encounters: from 1870s Paris art exhibitions to turn-of-the-century Dublin and London; from gossip to the culture of the barmaid; from the worship of Balzac to the fraught engagement with Yeats; from music to Celtic cultural translation. Moore s reputation as a collaborator with the most significant artistic individuals of his time in Britain, Ireland and France in particular, but also in Europe more widely, provides a rich exposition of modes of exchange and influence in the period, and a unique and distinctive perspective on Moore himself."

This book is the first to examine life writing and disability in the context of Irish culture. It will be valuable to readers interested in Disability Studies, Irish Studies, autobiography and life writing, working-class literature, popular culture, and new media. Ranging from Sean O'Casey's 1939 childhood memoir to contemporary blogging practices, Disability and Life Writing in Post-Independence Ireland analyzes a century of autobiographical writing about the social, psychological, economic, and physical dimensions of living with disabilities. The book examines memoirs of sight loss with reference to class and labor conditions, the harrowing stories of residential institutions and the advent of the independent living movement, and the autobiographical fiction of such acknowledged literary figures as Christy Brown and playwright Stewart Parker. Extending the discussion to the contemporary moment, popular genres such as the sports and celebrity autobiography are explored, as well as such newer phenomena as blogging and self-referential performance art.

This book is the first to examine life writing and disability in the context of Irish culture. It will be valuable to readers interested in Disability Studies, Irish Studies, autobiography and life writing, working-class literature, popular culture, and new media. Ranging from Sean O'Casey's 1939 childhood memoir to contemporary blogging practices, Disability and Life Writing in Post-Independence Ireland analyzes a century of autobiographical writing about the social, psychological, economic, and physical dimensions of living with disabilities. The book examines memoirs of sight loss with reference to class and labor conditions, the harrowing stories of residential institutions and the advent of the independent living movement, and the autobiographical fiction of such acknowledged literary figures as Christy Brown and playwright Stewart Parker. Extending the discussion to the contemporary moment, popular genres such as the sports and celebrity autobiography are explored, as well as such newer phenomena as blogging and self-referential performance art.

In the midst of an explosion of interest in the field of autobiography, there have developed critical languages and approaches that allow us to read both George Moore's fiction and his fictive autobiographies in new and exciting ways. Elizabeth Grubgeld presents a fresh look at the diverse experiments in fiction and the highly ironic and multi-generic performances Moore put forth as his life story. She focuses on the tension between Moore's fascination with deterministic theories of human behavior and his need to assert a principle of self-creation, his "autogenous self." Moore's work exhibits a profound recognition of the forces of heredity, gender, culture, and history while simultaneously declaring his belief in an autogenous self. In early novels like A Drama in Muslin and Esther Waters, there is a notable conflict between his postulation of the pure, instinctive individual and the emphasis upon the shaping power of heredity and economics inherent in the traditions of social realism that he adopts. In The Untilled Field, The Lake, and later works, Moore perfects a narrative technique that, in highlighting the power of subjective memory, allows his characters to work out a new relation with the forces of history. Grubgeld's discussion of satire, caricature, and parody as autobiographical forms will contribute greatly to an understanding of how Moore viewed the relations between the self and the surrounding world. This study, which also incorporates a theoretical discussion of letters as autobiography, will be of interest to specialists in Irish studies, late Victorian and modern British literature, gender studies, and autobiography.