Sets I'd Like to Complete

Plutarch's Lives (1727)

Odd volumes to Complete a Set:

Series:

1. The Brontë Sisters (1816–1855; 1818–1848; 1820–1849): The Works of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë (12 vols - 1893-96)
2. Lord Byron (1788-1824): Letters and Journals (13 vols - 1973-94)
3. Daniel Defoe (1660-1731): The Shakespeare Head Edition of the the Novels and Selected Writings (14 vols - 1927-28 / 12 vols - 1974)
4. Charles Dickens (1812-1870): The 'Daily News' Memorial Edition (19 vols - 1900-1910)
5. The Muses' Library: First Series (26 vols - 1891-1940) / Second Series (16 vols - 1949-1980)
6. Poetry NZ (48 vols - 1990-2014)
7. Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Twickenham Edition (11 vols - 1940-1969)
8. Marcel Proust (1871-1922): Selected Letters (4 vols - 1983-2000)
9. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941): Collected Essays (6 vols - 1986-2009)
10. W. B. Yeats (1865-1939): The Collected Works (14 vols - 1983-2015)

Charles Dickens: Sets of Fake Books

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Books I own are marked in bold:

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Brontë Sisters: Collected Works (1893-96)


The Brontë Sisters
(1816–1855; 1818–1848; 1820–1849)


1. The Works of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Illustrations by A. S. Greig. Ornaments by T. C. Tilney. 12 vols. 1893. London: J. M. Dent, 1895-96.
   1. Jane Eyre, by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë). Vol. 1 of 2. Introduction by F. J. S. (1896)
   2. Jane Eyre. Vol. 2 of 2 (1896)
   3. Shirley, by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë). Vol. 1 of 2. Introduction by F. J. S. (1896)
   4. Shirley. Vol. 2 of 2 (1896)
   5. Villette, by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë). Vol. 1 of 2.
   6. Villette. Vol. 2 of 2.
   7. The Professor, by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë). Introduction by F. J. S. (1895)
   8. Poems of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. With Cottage Poems by Patrick Brontë, Introduction by F. J. S. (1896)
   9. Wuthering Heights, by Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë). Vol. 1 of 2. Introduction by F. J. S.
   10. Wuthering Heights. Vol. 2 of 2. Agnes Grey, by Acton Bell (Anne Brontë). Introduction by F. J. S. (1896)
   11. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Acton Bell (Anne Brontë). Vol. 1 of 2. Introduction by F. J. S. (1893)
   12. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Acton Bell (Anne Brontë). Vol. 2 of 2 (1893)



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Leslie Marchand, ed.: Byron's Letters and Journals (1973-1994)


George Gordon, Lord Byron
(1788-1824)


2. George Gordon, Lord Byron. Byron's Letters and Journals: The Complete and Unexpurgated Text of All the Letters Available in Manuscript and the Full Printed Version of All Others. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. London: John Murray / Harvard University: Belknap Press, 1973-94.
   1. ‘In my hot youth’ - Vol. 1: 1798-1810. 1973. London: John Murray, 1974.
   2. ‘Famous in my time’ - Vol. 2: 1810-1812. 1973. London: John Murray, 1974.
   3. ‘Alas! the love of Women!’ - Vol. 3: 1813-1814. London: John Murray, 1974.
   4. ‘Wedlock’s the devil’ - Vol. 4: 1814-1815. London: John Murray, 1975.
   5. ‘So late into the night’ - Vol. 5: 1816-1817. London: John Murray, 1976.
   6. ‘The flesh is frail’ - Vol. 6: 1818-1819. London: John Murray, 1976.
   7. ‘Between two worlds’ - Vol. 7: 1820. London: John Murray, 1977.
   8. ‘Born for opposition’ - Vol. 8: 1821. London: John Murray, 1978.
   9. ‘In the wind’s eye’ - Vol. 9: 1821-1822. London: John Murray, 1979.
   10. ‘A heart for every fate’ - Vol. 10: 1822-1823. London: John Murray, 1980.
   11. ‘For freedom’s battle’ - Vol. 11: 1823-1824. London: John Murray, 1981.
   12. ‘The Trouble of an Index’ - Vol. 12: Anthology of Memorable Passages and Index to the Eleven Volumes. London: John Murray, 1982.
   13. ‘What comes uppermost’ - Vol. 13: Supplementary Materials. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. London: John Murray / Harvard University: Belknap Press, 1994.



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The Shakespeare Head Edition of the Novels and Selected Writings of Daniel Defoe (1974):
Robinson Crusoe (3 vols.) / A Journal of the Plague Year / The Fortunate Mistress (2 vols.) / Captain Singleton / Memoirs of a Cavalier / Moll Flanders (2 vols.) / Colonel Jack (2 vols.)


Daniel Defoe
(1660-1731)


3. The Shakespeare Head Edition of the Novels and Selected Writings of Daniel Defoe. 1927-28. Oxford: Basil Blackwell / Stratford-upon-Avon: The Shakespeare Head Press / London: William Clowes & Sons Limited, 1974.
   1. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Vol. I (1719)
   2. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Vol. II (1719)
   3. The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Vol. III (1719)
   4. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)
   5. The Fortunate Mistress. Vol. I (1724)
   6. The Fortunate Mistress. Vol. II (1724)
   7. [Captain Singleton (1720)]
   8. [Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720)]
   9. [Moll Flanders. Vol. I (1722)]
   10. [Moll Flanders. Vol. II (1722)]
   11. [Colonel Jack. Vol. I (1722)]
   12. [Colonel Jack. Vol. I (1722)]



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Charles Dickens: The 'Daily News' Memorial Edition (1900-1910)


Charles Dickens
(1812-1870)


4. The 'Daily News' Memorial Edition. 19 vols. London: Chapman & Hall, Ld, n.d. [c.1900-1910]:
   1. Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Everyday Life and Everyday People. Illustrated by George Cruickshank (1836-39)
   2. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Phiz et al (1836-37)
   3. [Oliver Twist / A Tale of Two Cities (1837-39 & 1859)]
   4. [The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839)]
   5. [The Old Curiosity Shop (1841)]
   6. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ‘80. Illustrated (1841)
   7. American Notes / Pictures from Italy / A Child’s History of England (1842, 1846 & 1851-53)
   8. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated (1843-44)
   9. Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol / The Chimes / The Cricket on the Hearth / The Battle of Life / The Haunted Man & Hard Times. Illustrated (1843, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1848 & 1853)
   10. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey & Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. Illustrated (1848)
   11. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Illustrated (1850)
   12. [Bleak House (1853)]
   13. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Phiz (1857)
   14. [Great Expectations / The Uncommercial Traveller (1860-61, 1860-69)]
   15. Our Mutual Friend. Illustrated by Marcus Stone (1864-65)
   16. The Mystery of Edwin Drood & Reprinted Pieces. Illustrated (1870 & 1858)
   17. Christmas Stories: From “Household Words” and “All The Year Round” & Other Stories: Master Humphrey’s Clock / Hunted Down / Holiday Romance / George Silverman's Explanation. Illustrated (1874, 1840, 1867)
   18. [The Dickens Dictionary, by Gilbert A. Pierce & William A. Wheeler (1880)]
   19. [Life of Charles Dickens by John Forster (1872-74)]



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The Muses' Library (1912)


The Muses' Library
(1891–1940; 1949–1980)

First Series
Lawrence & Bullen (London) / Routledge & Sons (London)
Series dates: 1891-1900 / 1904-1940


1. Arnold. 2 vols.
2. Beddoes. Ed. Ramsey Colles
   • Beddoes, Thomas Lovell. The Poems. Ed. Ramsay Colles. The Muses’ Library. London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. / New York: E. P . Dutton & Co., n.d.
3. Blake. Ed. W. B. Yeats
4. Browne of Tavistock. 2 vols. Ed. Gordon Goodwin
5. Browning, R. Poetical Works
6. Campion. Poetical Works (in English). Ed. Perceval Vivian
7. Carew. Ed. A. Vincent
8. Coleridge, S. T. Ed. Richard Garnett
9. Coleridge, Hartley. Ed. Ramsey Colles
   • Coleridge, Hartley. The Complete Poetical Works. Ed. Ramsay Colles. The Muses' Library. London: George Routledge, n.d.
10. Crashaw. Ed. J. R. Tutin
    • Crashaw, Richard. The Poems. Ed. J. R. Tutin. Introduction by Canon Beeching. The Muses’ Library. London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. / New York: E. P . Dutton & Sons, n.d. [c.1912]
11. Donne. Introduction by George Saintsbury. Ed. E. K. Chambers
12. Drummond of Hawthornden. Ed. W. C. Ward
13. Gay. Ed. J. Underhill
14. Herrick. 2 vols. Introduction by A. C. Swinburne. Ed. A. Pollard
15. Johnson, Goldsmith, Gray & Collins. Ed. Colonel T. Methuen Ward
16. Keats. 2 vols. Introduction by Robert Bridges. Ed. G. Thorn Drury
17. Marvell. 2 vols. Ed. G. A. Aitken
18. Morris, Lewis. Authorised Selection
19. Palgrave, F. T.. The Golden Treasury
20. Patmore, Coventry. The Angel in the House & The Victories of Love. Introduction by Alice Meynell
21. Proctor, Adelaide. Legends and Lyrics
22. Rosetti, D. G.. The Early Italian Poets
23. Tennyson. Poetical Works 1830-1888
24. Vaughan. Introduction by Canon Beeching. Ed. E. K. Chambers
25. Waller. 2 vols. Ed. G. Thorn Drury
26. Wither, George. Ed. Frank Sidgwick

The Muses' Library (1905)





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Poems of Ben Jonson (1968)

Second Series
Routledge & Kegan Paul (London) / Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA)
Series dates: 1949-1980


1. Selected Poems of William Barnes, 1800-1886. Ed. Geoffrey Grigson
2. Plays and Poems of Thomas Lovell Beddoes. Ed. H. W. Donner (1950)
   • Beddoes, Thomas Lovell. Plays and Poems. Ed. H. W. Donner. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1950.
3. Selected Poems of John Clare. Ed. Geoffrey Grigson (1950)
   • Clare, John. Selected Poems. Ed. Geoffrey Grigson. 1950. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1963.
4. Poems of Charles Cotton. Ed. John Buxton
5. The Complete Works of William Diaper. Ed. Dorothy Broughton
6. Poems of Michael Drayton. 2 vols. Ed. John Buxton (1953)
   • Buxton, John, ed. The Poems of Michael Drayton. 1953. 2 vols. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1967.
7. Englands Helicon. Ed. Hugh MacDonald (1949)
   • England’s Helicon: Edited from the Edition of 1600 with Additional Poems from the Edition of 1614. Ed. Hugh MacDonald. 1949. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1962.
8. Irish Poets of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. Geoffrey Taylor
9. Selected Poems of Ben Jonson. Ed. George Burke Johnston
10. The Poems of Andrew Marvell. Ed. Hugh MacDonald (1952)
    • Marvell, Andrew. Collected Poems: Printed from the Unique Copy in the British Museum with Some Other Poems by Him. Ed. Hugh MacDonald. 1952. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1969.
11. Selected Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed. Ed. Kenneth Allott
12. The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh. Ed. Agnes Latham (1951)
    • Latham, Agnes, ed. The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh. 1951. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1962.
13. Poems by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Ed. Vivian de Sola Pinto (1953)
    • Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester. Collected Poems. Ed. Vivian de Sola Pinto. 1953. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1964.
14. The Collected Poems of Christopher Smart. 2 vols. Ed. Norman Callan (1949)
    • Smart, Christopher. The Collected Poems. Ed. Norman Callan. 2 vols. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949.
15. Collected Poems of Jonathan Swift. 2 vols. Ed. Joseph Horrell (1958)
    • Horrell, John, ed. Collected Poems of Jonathan Swift. 2 vols. The Muses' Library. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Limited, 1958.
16. The Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Ed. Kenneth Muir (1949)
    • Wyatt, Sir Thomas. Collected Poems. Ed. Kenneth Muir. 1949. The Muses’ Library. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1967.

The Muses' Library (1950s)




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Bernard Gadd, ed.: Poetry NZ 7 (1993)
Cover Design: Merelyn Tweedie


Poetry NZ
Brick Row Publishing (Auckland & Palm Springs) / Puriri Press (Auckland)
Series dates: 1990-2014


• Poetry NZ 7 (1993), ed. Bernard Gadd (Auckland: Brick Row).
• Poetry NZ 13 (1996), ed. Alistair Paterson (Auckland: Brick Row).




Alistair Paterson, ed.: Poetry NZ 13 (1996)




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Alexander Pope: Twickenham Edition (1939-1969)


Alexander Pope
(1688-1744)


5. The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope. Ed. John Butt. 11 [= 12] vols (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. / New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939-69):
   1. Volume I: Pastoral Poetry and An Essay on Criticism. Ed. E. Audra & Aubrey Williams (1961)
   2. Volume II: The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems. Ed. Geoffrey Tillotson (1940)
   3. Volume III (i): An Essay on Man. Ed. Maynard Mack (1950)
   4. Volume III (ii): Epistles to Several Persons (Moral Essays). Ed. F. W. Bateson (1951)
   5. Volume IV: Imitations of Horace with An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot and the Epilogue to the Satires. Ed. John Butt (1939)
   6. Volume V: The Dunciad. Ed. James Sutherland (1943)
   7. Volume VI: Minor Poems. Ed. Norman Ault & John Butt (1957)
   8. Volume VII-VIII: The Iliad of Homer. Ed. Maynard Mack (1967)
   9. Volume IX-X: The Odyssey of Homer. Ed. Maynard Mack (1967)
   10. Volume XI: Index (1969)



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Marcel Proust: Selected Letters, Volume Three: 1910-1917 (1992)


Marcel Proust
(1871-1922)


6. Selected Letters. Ed. Philip Kolb. 4 vols (1983- 2000):
   1. Volume One: 1880-1903. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Introduction by J. M. Cocking. 1983. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
   2. Volume Two: 1904-1909. Trans. Terence Kilmartin. London: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1989.
   3. Volume Three: 1910-1917. Trans. Terence Kilmartin. London: HarperCollins, 1992.
   4. Volume Four: 1910-1917. Trans. Joanna Kilmartin. Foreword by Alain De Botton. London: HarperCollins, 2000.



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Virginia Woolf: Collected Essays, Volume 6: 1933-1941 (2000)


Virginia Woolf
(1882-1941)


7. Collected Essays. Ed. Andrew McNeillie & Stuart N. Clarke. 6 Vols. The Hogarth Press, 1986-2009.
   1. Volume 1: 1904-1912. Ed. Andrew McNeillie. London: The Hogarth Press, 1986.
   2. Volume 2: 1912-1918. Ed. Andrew McNeillie. London: The Hogarth Press, 1987.
   3. Volume 3: 1919-1924. Ed. Andrew McNeillie. London: The Hogarth Press, 1989.
   4. Volume 4: 1925-1928. Ed. Andrew McNeillie. London: The Hogarth Press, 1994.
   5. Volume 5: 1929-1932. Ed. Stuart N. Clarke. London: The Hogarth Press, 2009.
   6. Volume 6: 1933-1941. Ed. Stuart N. Clarke. London: The Hogarth Press, 2000.



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W. B. Yeats: The Poems (1997)


W. B. Yeats
(1865-1939)


8. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats. General Editors: Richard J. Finneran & George Mills Harper (1983-2015)
   1. The Poems: 2nd Edition. Ed. Richard J. Finneran. 1983. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, I. London: Macmillan Limited, 1997.
   2. The Plays. Ed. David R. Clark. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, II. London: Macmillan Limited, 2001.
   3. Autobiographies. Ed. Douglas Archibald, J. Fraser Cocks III, & Gretchen L. Schwenker. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, III. London: Macmillan Limited, 1999.
   4. Early Essays [Ideas of Good and Evil; The Cutting of an Agate]. 1903, 1912. Ed. Richard J. Finneran & George Bornstein. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, IV. London: Macmillan Limited, 2007.
   5. Later Essays [Per Amica Silentia Lunae &c.]. 1917. Ed. William H. O'Donnell. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, V. London: Macmillan Limited, 1994.
   6. Prefaces and Introductions. Ed. William H. O'Donnell. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, VI. London: Macmillan Limited, 1989.
   7. Letters to the New Island. Ed. George Bornstein & Hugh Witemeyer. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, VII. London: Macmillan Limited, 1989.
   8. The Irish Dramatic Movement. Ed. Mary FitzGerald & Richard J. Finneran. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, VIII. London: Macmillan Limited, 2003.
   9. Early Articles and Reviews: Uncollected Articles and Reviews Written Between 1886 and 1900. Ed. John P. Frayne & Madeleine Marchaterre. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, IX. London: Macmillan Limited, 2004.
   10. Later Articles and Reviews: Uncollected Articles, Reviews, and Radio Broadcasts Written After 1900. Ed. Colton Johnson. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, X. London: Macmillan Limited, 2000.
   11. Mythologies. Ed. Warwick Gould & Deirdre Toomey. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, XI. London: Macmillan Limited, 2005.
   12. John Sherman and Dhoya. Ed. Richard J. Finneran. 1991. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, XII. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993.
   13. A Vision: The Original 1925 Version. Ed. Catherine E. Paul & Margaret Mills Harper. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, XIII. London: Macmillan Limited, 2008.
   14. A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition. Ed. Margaret Mills Harper & Catherine E. Paul. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, XIV. London: Macmillan Limited, 2015.

Shannon Moore: Shannonsminis

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Acquisitions (110): Deborah Lipstadt

Deborah E. Lipstadt: Denial: Holocaust History on Trial (2016)

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Deborah Lipstadt (1947- )

Deborah Lipstadt. Denial: Holocaust History on Trial (2016)
[Hato Hone / St. John Opportunity Shop, Wairau Park - 2/5/24]:

Lipstadt, Deborah E. Denial: Holocaust History on Trial. ['History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier', 2005]. Ecco. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016.

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Richard J. Evans: Lying About Hitler (2001)

Richard J. Evans. Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial. 2001. Basic Books. New York: Perseus Books, 2002.

Lying About Hitler

The Richard J. Evans book pictured above was my point of entry into the intricacies of David Irving's infamous libel case against American Professor Deborah Lipstadt for labelling him a Holocaust denier.

So fascinating did I find Evans' book, in fact, that I made it the centrepiece of a whole module in the Creative Nonfiction Masters course I put together with my Massey colleague Ingrid Horrocks.

Peter Bradshaw: Review: Overwhelmingly relevant assertion of truth (26/1/2017)
l-to-r: Andrew Scott, Rachel Weisz and Tom Wilkinson in Denial

When I heard that there was to be a film about the trial, I felt very anxious to see it. However, if it was screened in any of the cinemas around here I must have missed it. Instead I was forced to order the CD online and watch it that way.

Mick Jackson, dir. Denial (2016)

Denial, dir. Mick Jackson, writ. David Hare (based on Deborah Lipstadt's book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier) – with Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, Andrew Scott, Jack Lowden, Caren Pistorius, John Sessions, Alex Jennings – (UK / USA, 2016).

So it was a distinct feeling of pleasure that I finally ran across Deborah Lipstadt's own book about the trial in an Op shop the other day. It was the film tie-in version (not surprisingly), and I was reminded yet again of how difficult Rachel Weisz finds it to look anything but gorgeous in any of her roles. I guess she'll just have to put up with the fact: there are worse fates, after all.

Tom McCarthy, dir. Spotlight (2015)

Spotlight, dir. Tom McCarthy, writ. Tom McCarthy & Josh Singer – with Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d'Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, Billy Crudup – (USA, 2015).

The same might be said of Rachel McAdams, one of the stars of the movie Spotlight, which appeared in 2015, just a year before Denial.

Daily Mail: Rachel McAdams dresses down (29/9/2014)

The parallels don't end there, of course. Spotlight is a film about the Catholic Church's attempts to cover up the wide-spread child abuse cases concerning their priests in Boston. It's certainly a serious, cerebral film - but it struck a chord with viewers. It was both critically and financially successful, and proved that you really can underestimate the intelligence and taste of filmgoers.

Denial is equally serious and challenging. David Hare's script is both restrained and effective, and he does a wonderful job of conveying the urgency of the questions under debate in the courtroom, while still providing meaty roles for the impressive cast. Alas, it ended up losing money rather than making it, and attracted a somewhat muted critical response also. Spotlight clearly hit a nerve that Denial, a year later, didn't.

D. D. Guttenplan: The Holocaust on Trial (2001)

Guttenplan, D. D. The Holocaust on Trial. 2001. New York & London: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2002.

So why do I see this trial, and the various books and feature film provoked by it, as so very important? It's not really the fact that it concerns the Holocaust - I mean, anyone who needs the verdict in a British libel trial to convince them that the Holocaust actually took place is probably impervious to any conventional standards of evidence.

No, it's the question of whether or not any historical event can be proved to have taken place in the face of someone else's claim that it didn't. Does it matter? Well, yes, it does. If someone can stand up and say that there was no Second World War - or Roman Empire - and have their opinion on the matter treated as seriously as anyone else's, then there can be no history, no settled sense of the past, no context for anything but assertions of opinion.

That may sound like a world of paranoid delusion, but in our present political situation, where the number of attendees at a rally can be disputed on the grounds that "alternate facts" can co-exist in the universe as we know it - or where the results of an election depend on your pre-conceived view of who would win - it suddenly becomes quite a vital question.

The easiest way to summarise my view of the importance of this libel trial might perhaps be to summarise some of the notes I wrote on the subject for our Masters Course:

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Deborah Lipstadt: Denying the Holocaust (1993)

To make a long story short, an American historian, Deborah Lipstadt, wrote a book called Denying the Holocaust (1993) in which she described prominent British military historian David Irving as a Holocaust denier. The book was published in the UK as well as in the US, and Irving accordingly brought a libel action against Lipstadt, claiming that she had done irreparable damage to his professional reputation.

In Britain (unlike the United States) the onus is on the person accused of libel to prove their own innocence of the charge. Lipstadt therefore had to show sufficient evidence of systematic distortion of the facts in Irving's - very extensive - published work to win her case and avoid having to withdraw her book and pay substantial damages.

Irving filed suit on 5 September 1996. The judge's final 333-page written verdict was delivered on 11 April 2000. In between those two dates the historian Richard Evans and his assistants spent thousands of man-hours combing through Irving's books, articles and diaries - not to mention an immense amount of time spent on the case spent by the lawyers and other experts.

Evans says in his book that he'd thought initially that a court of law was a terrible place to judge history. By the end of the process, however, he concluded that it was actually an excellent place. Only there could people actually be forced to answer questions, and could matters of details be examined from all angles without having to apologise for testing the patience of those concerned.

It was the failure of other readers, both professional and casual, to subject Irving's work to this unprecedented scrutiny which explained how its shockingly unbalanced nature had avoided exposure previously.

What is truth? Truth, it turns out, is the Holocaust. Or, rather, events of that cataclysmic nature. It is not a criminal offence to deny that the Holocaust took place in most countries (though it remains one in Austria and Germany). You may be a Holocaust denier yourself. Bully for you.

For a professional historian to twist and subvert the documents he uses to make them imply things they don't actually say is a crime of a quite different nature, however. Irving used every device at his disposal to attempt to prove Hitler's innocence of the crime of genocide. At first he was content to blame it on Hitler's subordinates, but later he decided that no substantive crime had taken place at all (beyond some deaths from disease at such camps as Auschwitz).

But if he actually believed this to be true, why did he need to lie about it and distort the evidence? This is where the balance between unrestrained relativism ("there is no truth: only points of view") and old-fashioned pragmatism ("the documents don't lie: there was a war, there was an Auschwitz, there was a genocide") becomes most tricky.

It's a morass you can't avoid, no matter how much you'd like to, which is why the details of the Hitler libel case should be so fascinating to all of us. Irving was proved to be a liar because he had to cite the sources of his lies: those are the rules professional historians play by. You can write an article or a speech off the top of your head, and assert anything you like. When you sit down to write a history, though, you need to cite chapter and verse.

Everybody makes mistakes. If they didn't, we wouldn't need to cover the same ground again and again, with different emphases and different interpretations. You can simply get it wrong. You can also change your mind (if you're honest you'll admit it: if you're less honest you'll just try to sneak revisions to your original point of view into subsequent work).

None of that has anything to do with the Irving case. Evans showed, in painstaking detail, that Irving could not have misunderstood the nature of some of the documents he relied on to exculpate Hitler from the charge of genocide: he misquoted and mis-paraphrased them deliberately. Tellingly, there were never any mistakes in the opposite direction - all his "mistakes" tended towards one end, the exoneration of Adolf Hitler.

Did Irving do this because he believed it to be true on some deeper level than the documents would allow? Did he simply make things up and distort them because he couldn't find any real evidence for his beliefs? It's hard to tell. But it seems as if he can't really have believed it himself - if he had, why would he have needed to lie? If Hitler really was innocent of genocide, then surely that fact would sooner or later become clear.

Irving was an autodidact. He never attended a university. His fluent German, his archival scholarship, were all self-taught. Like many autodidacts, he felt an inferiority complex about these deficiencies in his professional CV. He therefore took every opportunity to deride products of the Academic system as mindless drones and yes-men. As he saw it, they supported the party line on the Holocaust and everything else simply because that is what they had been taught to do.

Irving's books are unreliable trash not because he didn't understand historiography, but because he was a liar. The motives for his lies are complex: probably more personal than ideological in the final analysis. It would be unfair to suggest that his love for Adolf Hitler as a man and an historical figure was anything but passionate and lasting.

But would anyone in the 1960s and 1970s, when Irving was at the height of his influence, have wanted to read a series of love letters to Hitler? Of course not. He was therefore forced to try to sound objective while secretly stacking the deck in favour of his hero. The most obvious example is in his very influential 1963 book The Destruction of Dresden, which, largely as a result of Evans's investigations, can now be seen to be fundamentally flawed and completely unreliable on points of detail: especially the absurdly padded casualty figures that Irving provided, on the most tenuous evidence.

The moment you accept the possibility of a lie: that a statement can be untrue, then you simultaneously admit the need for a complex and nuanced model of historiography. If, however, you believe that the opinion that there was no Second World War, or there was no Holocaust (in the accepted sense of those terms) has no less validity that the opposite view, then you inhabit a field of extreme relativism which probably qualifies you more for Linguistic Philosophy than Historiography - or, for that matter, for an Austrian jail. Irving was sentenced to three years imprisonment in Austria in 2005 for "Nazi activities." He was released in 2006 after serving only a year of his sentence, but was banned from ever re-entering the country.

The argument, of course, continues. It is a criminal offence in Turkey to use the word "genocide" in connection with the First World War massacres of Armenians in that country. Is this justified? Any and every event in history can - and should - be questioned - and questioned repeatedly.

If you have a preconceived bias on the matter you're discussing, you must say so. If David Irving had prefaced any of his books with the words: "I adore Hitler. I don't believe so wonderful a man can have been a mass murderer," then our opinion of him might have been different. Many people loved the late serial killer Charles Manson on even slighter grounds. It's doubtful that it would have been much of an incentive to major publishers to issue his books, however. And Irving did need the money.

Life's too short to spend your time talking to narcissists and liars. Any of you who've spent any time in their company will recognise what I'm talking about. The ingenious twists and turns of their reasoning always tend, in the end, towards self-exculpation. Whoever's to blame, it's never them.

Does all the attention paid to the Holocaust distract us from other, equally wicked and terrible events which have also taken place over the past century or so? It would be easy to argue that it does. Others claim that terms such as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" are used too frequently for crimes which pale into insignificance beside the twelve-year ordeal of Europe's Jews at the hands of the Nazi party. These are philosophical and ethical issues which ultimately come down to matters of personal opinion.

It's as well to be aware of at least some of the implications if you really do feel inclined to offer the benefit of the doubt to Holocaust-deniers, though.

The Holocaust is a subject for respect, for tears at the sheer horror of what people can do to each other. It's not something to make cheap jokes or chop logic about. Mind you, if you feel equally horrified by Rwanda or Srebrenica or the genocidal assaults on the Palestinians in Gaza, all I can say is that I couldn't agree with you more.

But, to be honest, I've never noticed any of the people who say we 'talk too much' about the Holocaust, or Slavery, or the other great crimes of history having much to offer in the way of alternative topics of conversation.

Perhaps the final lesson here, then, is simply to have a bit of respect. Listen to those who were there. Otherwise it's hard to imagine that you're likely to have much to contribute to the world's thought.

Richard J. Evans: In Defense of History (1997)

Richard J. Evans. In Defense of History. 1997. American ed. 1999. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000.

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• category - History: Anthologies & Secondary Literature

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Acquisitions (109): Patrick Pearse

Patrick Pearse: Songs of the Irish Rebels (1918)

•

Pádraig Mac Piarais (1879-1916)

Patrick Pearse. Songs of the Irish Rebels (1918)
[Finally Books - Hospice Bookshop, Birkenhead - 23/4/24]:

Padraic H. Pearse. Collected Works: Songs of the Irish Rebels and Specimens from an Irish Anthology. Dublin & London: Maunsel and Co., Limited, 1918.

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Easter Proclamation (1916)

Easter 1916

I wrote a blogpost a few years ago comparing Yeats's immortal "Easter 1916" with some of Seamus Heaney's poems about the Troubles in Northern Ireland:

History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

- from The Cure at Troy (1990)

1916: The Irish Rebellion (2016)

1916: The Irish Rebellion: 3-part miniseries, created & writ. Bríona Nic Dhiarmada, dir. Pat Collins & Ruan Magan, narrated by Liam Neeson (Ireland, 2016).

Since then I've collected a lot more material on the subject, as well as watching and rewatching the very poignant centenary documentary pictured above. So much courage! so much futility! Talk about "a terrible beauty is born" ...

Every Celtic bone in my body was aching in sympathy as the perfidious English carried poor wounded James Connolly out into the execution yard on a stretcher, tied him to a chair, and shot him, just like all fourteen of the other martyrs (Roger Casement was hanged in London). It brings a tear to my eye even now.

Interestingly enough, though, the last of their three hour-long episodes is titled "When Myth and History Rhyme," presumably as an allusion to Heaney's free adaptation of Sophocles, quoted above.

The Easter Rising certainly is one of the most mythologised events of modern times: perhaps because the Irish have more good poets per square mile than virtually any other country can boast, but also because it remains something of an enigma, even after all this time.

Colin Teevan: Rebellion (2 series: 2016 & 2019)

Colin Teevan's recent TV series - another centennial effort - gives a somewhat different slant on 1916. His version of Patrick Pearse (for instance) is a martyr-in-training, cleverly manipulating the English to shoot him for "encouraging the enemy in time of war" instead of convicting him of the lesser offence of "armed insurrection."

The rest of the cast are haplessly swept up in the winds of war and nationalism. All end up more-or-less disillusioned by the end of the drama. It's certainly a coherent approach, but (dare I say it?) Teevan also succeeded in doing something nobody's really managed before, which was to make the Easter Rising seem quite boring.

The central motif of the "three little maids from school" - one a qualified doctor trying to avoid the loveless marriage her wealthy family is foisting on her; another the mistress of a Dublin Castle official, who does a bit of spying on the side, but is really more interested in advancement in the civil service; only the last a genuine fire-breathing fanatic, completely committed to the cause, who only needs to clap on a cloth cap to pass for a man and start shooting traitors - seems more redolent of the world of Downton Abbey than that of Cathleen ni Houlihan.

Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot?

Yeats asked himself in "The Man and the Echo" (1938). I think it's safe to say that Colin Teevan's efforts seem most unlikely to have a similar effect. But then, maybe that's a good thing - maybe bored is better than dead.

Sean O'Casey: The Plough and the Stars (1926)

In any case, there's nothing particularly new in this deliberate undercutting of the myths of 1916. Teevan's TV series certainly recalls (possibly even references) Sean O'Casey's classic play The Plough and the Stars, booed at its first performance for its juxtaposition of what Yeats referred to as "the normal grossness of life" - a public house with a prostitute waiting for clients - with the inflated aspirations of the new republic, embodied in its battle standards: the tricolour flag of the Irish Volunteers and the plough-and-stars flag of the Irish Citizen Army.

On that occasion, too, Yeats stood up to harangue the Abbey Theatre rioters:

I thought you had tired of this ... But you have disgraced yourselves again. Is this going to be a recurring celebration of Irish genius? Synge first and then O'Casey.

- Wikipedia: The Plough and the Stars

W. B. Yeats: The Death of Cuchulain (1938-39)

Yeats himself, in his final play "The Death of Cuchulain", included a final chorus equating the death of the mythic Irish hero with those of the martyrs of 1916:

Are those things that men adore and loathe
Their sole reality?
What stood in the Post Office
With Pearse and Connolly?
What comes out of the mountain
Where men first shed their blood?
Who thought Cuchulain till it seemed
He stood where they had stood?

No body like his body
Has modern woman borne,
But an old man looking back in life
Imagines it in scorn.
A statue's there to mark the place,
By Oliver Sheppard done.
So ends the tale that the harlot
Sang to the beggar-man.

Oliver Sheppard: The Dying Cúchulain (1911)

Yeats refers again to Sheppard's Michelangelo-esque bronze in another late poem, “The Statues” (1938):

When Pearse summoned Cuchulain to his side
What stalked through the post Office? What intellect,
What calculation, number, measurement, replied?
We Irish, born into that ancient sect
But thrown upon this filthy modern tide
And by its formless spawning fury wrecked,
Climb to our proper dark, that we may trace
The lineaments of a plummet-measured face.

For myself, I'm still in two minds about it all. Before settling for these bathetic undercuttings as the last word on the Easter Rising, though, I'd urge you to click on the youtube link below, under the image from Ken Loach's wonderful BBC drama Days of Hope (1975), and see if you can resist the beauty of Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill's rendition of "The Bold Fenian Men."

Loach may have borrowed the idea for this scene from the ending of Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957), but I can't help feeling that Loach's version is even more powerful and poignant.

John Ford, dir.: The Plough and the Stars (1936)

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Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill: "The Bold Fenian Men" (traditional)
Ken Loach: Days of Hope (BBC, 1975)

The Bold Fenian Men
(1916)

1. Roger Casement
2. Thomas MacDonagh
3. Sean O'Casey
4. Patrick Pearse
5. James Stephens
6. W. B. Yeats
7. Anthologies & Secondary Literature

Books I own are marked in bold:

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Sarah Purser: Roger Casement (1914)

Roger David Casement
[Ruairí Mac Easmainn / Sir Roger Casement]

(1864-1916)

There's small chance that the execution of Sir Roger Casement will ever cease to be a subject of controversy.
On the one hand, he was a renowned humanitarian, famous for exposing the genocidal crimes of the Belgian King Leopold's colonial regime in the Congo, and then doing much the same thing for the monstrous abuses of the Rubber Barons on the Amazon. He was knighted for these brave exploits.
On the other hand, he was a rabid Irish patriot, caught trying to smuggle guns into Ireland after landing there from a German submarine just before the Easter rising.
Lest these two truths cancel each other out, however, the Crown Prosecutors at his trial deliberately leaked passages from his private diaries which implied that he was an active homosexual. In his novel about Casement, The Dream of the Celt (2010), Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa tries to argue that these passages were simply sex fantasies, rather than the records of actual pick-ups. Most commentators see this as a cop-out, however.
Casement is thus a double martyr: ostensibly convicted for treason, but actually condemned for being a homosexual. It's hard, looking through modern eyes, to see him as anything but a hero.

Writings:


1. Sir Roger Casement's Heart of Darkness: The 1911 Documents Ed. Angus Mitchell (1999)
2. Slavery in Peru: Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Report of the Secretary of State, with Accompanying Papers, Concerning the Alleged Existence of Slavery in Peru (1913)
3. The Crime against Ireland, and How the War May Right it (1914)
4. Ireland, Germany and Freedom of the Seas: A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 (2005)
5. The Crime against Europe. The Causes of the War and the Foundations of Peace (1915)
6. Gesammelte Schriften. Irland, Deutschland und die Freiheit der Meere und andere Aufsätze (1916-17)
7. Some Poems (1918)

Diaries:


8. Singleton-Gates, Peter & Maurice Girodias. The Black Diaries: An Account of Roger Casement's Life and Times wth a Collection of His Diaries and Public Writings. Paris: The Olympia Press, 1959.
9. The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement. Ed. Angus Mitchell. Dublin: The Lilliput Press, Ltd. / London: Anaconda Editions, 1997.
10. Roger Casement's Diaries: 1910. The Black and the White. Ed. Roger Sawyer. London: Pimlico, 1997.
11. One Bold Deed of Open Treason: The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement. 1914-16. Ed. Angus Mitchell. Dublin: Irish Academic Press / Merrion Press, 2016.

Secondary:


12. Hyde, H. Montgomery. Famous Trials, Ninth Series: Roger Casement. 1960. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.
13. MacColl, René. Roger Casement. 1956. A Four Square Biography. London: Landsborough Publications Limited, 1960.
14. Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Dream of the Celt. ['El sueño del celta', 2010]. Trans. Edith Grossman. London: Faber, 2012.

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Thomas MacDonagh (1916)

Thomas MacDonagh
[Tomás Mac Donnchadha]

(1878-1916)

This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.

The first of the two men listed in Yeats's "Easter 1916" is Patrick Pearse, who ran the school at St. Enda where Gaelic language and culture were taught. Our "wingèd horse" is presumably a reference to Pegasus, as Pearse was himself a poet and writer of short stories in both English and Irish.
The second is Thomas MacDonagh, whose plays had been put on in Yeats' and Lady Gregory's Abbey Theatre, and elsewhere, and whose lyric poetry was widely read - more after the rebellion than before it, admittedly.
The reasons for executing him seem more than usually spurious in this case, as his role in the rising was not particularly central. In retrospect, they should have shot Michael Collins or Éamon de Valera instead. No doubt they would have done, if it hadn't been for the fact that the latter was an American citizen and the former not yet as widely known - and feared - as he soon would be.

Poetry:


1. Through the Ivory Gate (1902)
2. April and May, with Other Verse (1903)
3. The Golden Joy (1906)
4. Songs of Myself (1910)
5. Lyrical Poems (1913)
6. Poems (1917)
   • The Poetical Works of Thomas MacDonagh. Introduction by James Stephens. London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1917.

Plays:


7. When the Dawn is Come (1908)
8. Metempsychosis (1912)
9. Pagans (1915)

Prose:


10. Thomas Campion and the Art of English Poetry (1913)
11. Literature in Ireland: Studies Irish and Anglo-Irish (1916)

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Sarah Purser: Seán O'Casey (c.1910)

Seán O'Casey
[John Casey / Seán Ó Cathasaigh]

(1880-1964)

"At the onset, O’Casey was a fanatical Irish republican nationalist. Born into an educated, but poverty-stricken family, he had only three years of school education, and became an undernourished unskilled labourer. At the time, the infant mortality rate in Dublin was higher than in Moscow or Calcutta. Despite a serious eye ailment, he educated himself, becoming an avid reader of literature. At an early age, he became an activist in the Gaelic League, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and other nationalist groupings. But because of his situation as a worker, it was almost inevitable that his artistic development would largely depend on the evolution of the socialist movement."

- Dombrovski: "Sean O'Casey and the 1916 Easter Rising." International Communist Current (2006)

O'Casey therefore saw the nationalist struggle begun in 1916 as a betrayal of the socialist ideals of the Irish Citizen Army. The class struggle between capitalists and workers remained, in his view, unaffected by the subsequent Treaty and Civil War.
Perhaps, then, there's something to be said for Dombrovski's view that O'Casey's "later artistic decline was linked to the perversion of [proletarian] principles with the defeat of the world revolution in the 1920s (O’Casey became an unapologetic Stalinist)." His 1926 play The Plough and the Stars - subsequently turned into a somewhat saccharine Hollywood movie - remains one of the most powerful works inspired by 1916, however.

1. [as Seán Ó Cathasaigh] Lament for Thomas Ashe (1917)
2. [as Seán Ó Cathasaigh] The Story of Thomas Ashe (1917)
3. [as Seán Ó Cathasaigh] Songs of the Wren (1918)
4. [as Seán Ó Cathasaigh] More Wren Songs (1918)
5. The Harvest Festival (1918)
6. [as Seán Ó Cathasaigh] The Story of the Irish Citizen Army (1919)
7. The Shadow of a Gunman (1923)
   • Included in: Three Plays: Juno and the Paycock / The Shadow of a Gunman / The Plough and the Stars. 1925 & 1926. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1962.
8. Kathleen Listens In (1923)
9. Juno and the Paycock (1924)
   • Included in: Three Plays: Juno and the Paycock / The Shadow of a Gunman / The Plough and the Stars. 1925 & 1926. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1962.
10. Nannie's Night Out (1924)
11. The Plough and the Stars (1926)
    • Included in: Three Plays: Juno and the Paycock / The Shadow of a Gunman / The Plough and the Stars. 1925 & 1926. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1962.
12. The Silver Tassie (1927)
    • Included in: Three More Plays: The Silver Tassie / Purple Dust / Red Roses for Me. 1928, 1940 & 1942. Introduction by J. C. Trewin. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd. / New York: St. Martin’s Press Inc., 1965.
13. Within the Gates (1934)
14. The End of the Beginning (1937)
    • Included in: Five One-Act Plays: The End of the Beginning / A Pound on Demand / Hall of Healing / Bedtime Story / Time To Go. St. Martin’s Library. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1958.
15. A Pound on Demand (1939)
    • Included in: Five One-Act Plays: The End of the Beginning / A Pound on Demand / Hall of Healing / Bedtime Story / Time To Go. St. Martin’s Library. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1958.
16. I Knock at the Door (1939)
    • Included in: Autobiographies, Volume I: I Knock at the Door / Pictures in the Hallway / Drums Under the Windows. 1939, 1942, 1945. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1963.
17. Purple Dust (1940)
    • Included in: Three More Plays: The Silver Tassie / Purple Dust / Red Roses for Me. 1928, 1940 & 1942. Introduction by J. C. Trewin. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd. / New York: St. Martin’s Press Inc., 1965.
18. The Star Turns Red (1940)
19. Pictures in the Hallway (1942)
    • Included in: Autobiographies, Volume I: I Knock at the Door / Pictures in the Hallway / Drums Under the Windows. 1939, 1942, 1945. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1963.
20. Red Roses for Me (1942)
    • Included in: Three More Plays: The Silver Tassie / Purple Dust / Red Roses for Me. 1928, 1940 & 1942. Introduction by J. C. Trewin. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd. / New York: St. Martin’s Press Inc., 1965.
21. Drums Under the Window (1945)
    • Included in: Autobiographies, Volume I: I Knock at the Door / Pictures in the Hallway / Drums Under the Windows. 1939, 1942, 1945. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1963.
22. Oak Leaves and Lavender (1946)
23. Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949)
24. Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well (1949)
    • Autobiography, Book 4: Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well. 1949. London: Pan Books Ltd., 1972.
25. Hall of Healing (1951)
    • Included in: Five One-Act Plays: The End of the Beginning / A Pound on Demand / Hall of Healing / Bedtime Story / Time To Go. St. Martin’s Library. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1958.
26. Bedtime Story (1951)
    • Included in: Five One-Act Plays: The End of the Beginning / A Pound on Demand / Hall of Healing / Bedtime Story / Time To Go. St. Martin’s Library. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1958.
27. Time to Go (1951)
    • Included in: Five One-Act Plays: The End of the Beginning / A Pound on Demand / Hall of Healing / Bedtime Story / Time To Go. St. Martin’s Library. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1958.
28. Rose and Crown (1952)
    • Autobiography, Book 5: Rose and Crown (1926-1934). 1952. London: Pan Books Ltd., 1973.
29. The Wild Goose (1952)
30. Sunset and Evening Star (1954)
    • Autobiography, Book 6: Sunset and Evening Star (1934-1953). 1954. London: Pan Books Ltd., 1973.
31. The Bishop's Bonfire: A Sad Play within the Tune of a Polka (1955)
32. Mirror in My House: Autobiographies. 2 vols (1956)
    • Autobiographies, Volume I: I Knock at the Door / Pictures in the Hallway / Drums Under the Windows. 1939, 1942, 1945. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1963.
33. The Drums of Father Ned (1957)
34. Behind the Green Curtains (1961)
35. Figuro in the Night (1961)
36. The Moon Shines on Kylenamoe (1961)
37. Niall: A Lament (1991)

Secondary:


38. O’Casey, Eileen. Sean. Ed. J. C. Trewin. 1971. London: Pan Books Ltd., 1973.

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Patrick Pearse (c.1915)

Patrick Henry Pearse
[Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais / An Piarsach]

(1879-1916)

Pearse is in many ways the most enigmatic of the Easter martyrs. He can be read as a political naïf, so obsessed with the ancient glories of the Gaelic past that he forgot the realities of modern Ireland. Or, alternatively, he can be seen as a clever manipulator of public opinion, deliberately mounting a hopeless rebellion in order to provoke the English to retaliate brutally. His collected works do little to resolve the question. In the end, it's hard to see that it makes much difference. Whether he was sincerely misguided or cunningly far-sighted, his complete failure as a military leader paved the way for the total success of his overall strategy.

Some died by the glenside
some died mid the stranger
And wise men have told us
their cause was a failure
But they loved dear old Ireland
and never feared danger
Glory O, Glory O
to the bold Fenian men

He gave his life for his beliefs, in any case.

1. The Collected Works of Padraic H. Pearse. Ed. Desmond Ryan. 6 vols (1917-1922)
   1. Plays, Poems and Stories
      • Plays, Stories, Poems. 1917. Dublin & London: Maunsel and Co., Limited, 1919.
   2. St. Enda and Its Founders
   3. Songs of the Irish Rebels
      • Songs of the Irish Rebels and Specimens from an Irish Anthology. Dublin & London: Maunsel and Co., Limited, 1918.
   4. Scribhini [Gaelic writings]
   5. Political Writings and Speeches
   6. The Life of Patrick H. Pearse. Adapted from the French of Louis N. Le Roux and Revised by the Author. Translated into English by Desmond Ryan.

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James Stephens (1935)

James Stephens

(1882-1950)

[Bibliography]

"James Stephens (1880–1950) made his name with The Crock of Gold (1912), a story for children of all ages, creating ‘a world of rich fantasy’. He went to Paris in 1912, and in 1915 became Registrar of the National Gallery of Ireland. During Easter week 1916, Stephens witnessed the fighting around St Stephen’s Green, and soon after published an account of his observations: The Insurrection in Dublin."

- Dr Brendan Rooney: "James Stephens, the National Gallery of Ireland,
and the 1916 Rising." National Gallery of Ireland (2016)

As well as this short account of Easter week, Stephen also wrote an introduction for Thomas MacDonagh's Poetical Works (1917), and published his own book of translations and versions of traditional Irish poems - Reincarnations - in 1918. This was one of various 1916-related books I found in the Hospice shop the other day, along with works by Pearse and W. B. Yeats.

Poetry:


1. Reincarnations. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1918.
2. Collected Poems. 1926. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1931.

Prose:


3. The Insurrection in Dublin (1916)
4. James Stephens: A Selection. Ed. Lloyd Frankenberg. Preface by Padraic Colum. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1962.

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W. B. Yeats (c.1920s)

William Butler Yeats

(1865-1939)

[Bibliography]

"W. B. Yeats's iconic poem 'Easter 1916' will feature widely during this centenary year of the Easter Rising.
It is a many-layered work, but is essentially a love poem to Maud Gonne, whom the poet still hoped to capture. Maud rejected the poem in a famous letter to Yeats, writing, 'No, I don't like your poem, it isn't worthy of you and above all it isn't worthy of your subject.'
She objects to the line 'Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart' in reference to the Rising, but also to herself. Scholars have concentrated on this metaphor, but omit the other plainly stated reason she rejected the poem further along in her letter. Maud had sought a rapprochement with her husband John MacBride in 1910 but was rebuffed. After his execution, there was no obstacle, though Yeats's unwelcome poem stirs the old feud.
She tells him, and posterity: 'As for my husband he has entered Eternity by the great door of sacrifice which Christ opened & has therefore atoned for all so that in praying for him I can also ask for his prayers & "a terrible beauty is born".' Maud herself may well have been atoning for all to her late husband, John MacBride, in this remarkable sentence."

- Anthony J. Jordan, "Letter to the Editor." Irish Independent (8/1/2016)

Yeats was in London at the time of the rising, and was reported to have said that he was “overwhelmed by the news … [and] had no idea that a public event could move him so deeply.”
Having initially stated in "On being asked for a war poem": ‘“I think it better that in times like these a poet keep his mouth shut…” (quoted in K. Alldritt, W. B. Yeats: The Man and the Milieu, 1997), he had subsequently experienced the bombing of London by Zeppelins, and then been even more shocked by the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, on which he had once travelled, by German submarines.
The treatment of the Easter 1916 prisoners had the effect of galvanising him into making a stand. This may well have been at least partly motivated by the desire to impress his old flame Maud Gonne, but the results certainly went far beyond that, witness his subsequent poem "Sixteen Dead Men":

O but we talked at large before
The sixteen men were shot,
But who can talk of give and take,
What should be and what not
While those dead men are loitering there
To stir the boiling pot?

You say that we should still the land
Till Germany’s overcome;
But who is there to argue that
Now Pearse is deaf and dumb?
And is their logic to outweigh
MacDonagh’s bony thumb?

Poetry:


1. Collected Poems. 1933. Second edition. 1950. London: Macmillan Limited, 1967.

Plays:


2. Collected Plays. 1934. Second edition. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1952.
3. The Death of Cuchulain: Manuscript Materials Including the Author's Final Text. Ed. Phillip L. Marcus. The Cornell Yeats: Plays ed. David R. Clark. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1982.

Prose:


4. Autobiographies: Reveries over Childhood and Youth; The Trembling of the Veil; Dramatis Personae; Estrangement; The Death of Synge; The Bounty of Sweden. 1916, 1922, 1935, 1926, 1928, 1938, 1955. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1956.
5. Memoirs: Autobiography – First Draft / Journal. Ed. Denis Donoghue. London: Macmillan Limited, 1972.
6. Explorations: Explorations I / The Irish Dramatic Movement: 1901-1919 / Explorations II / Pages from a Diary Written in Nineteen Hundred and Thirty: 1944 / From Wheels and Butterflies: 1934 / From On the Boiler: 1939. Selected by Mrs. W. B. Yeats. London: Macmillan & Co Ltd., 1962.

Letters:


7. White, Anna MacBride, & A. Norman Jeffares, ed. Always Your Friend: The Gonne-Yeats Letters: 1893-1938. 1992. London: Pimlico, 1993.

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Max Caulfield: The Easter Rebellion (1963)

Anthologies & Secondary Literature

This is a very summary list of the works which could be cited on this subject. Between them, Max Caulfield's classic history The Easter Rebellion and Robert Kee's The Green Flag give a pretty good overview of the events themselves. Declan Kibber's book gives some useful insights into the ways it's been incorporated into the modern vision of Ireland.

1. Bell, J. Bowyer. The Secret Army: A History of the IRA, 1915-1970. 1970. London: Sphere Books Ltd., 1972.
2. Caulfield, Max. The Easter Rebellion. 1963. A Four Square Book. London: The New English Library Limited, 1965.
3. Kee, Robert. The Green Flag. 1972. 3 vols. London: Quartet Books, 1976.
   1. The Most Distressful Country
   2. The Bold Fenian Men
   3. Ourselves Alone
4. Kennelly, Brendan, ed. The Penguin Book of Irish Verse. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.
5. Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. 1995. Vintage. London: Random House, 1996.
6. McCourt, Malachy, ed. Voices of Ireland: Classic Writings of a Rich and Rare Land. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2002.

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• category - Irish Literature: Authors

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