Ralph O'Connor studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic and English Literature at the University of Cambridge before becoming a Junior Research Fellow in Irish and Icelandic Literature at St John's College, Cambridge. He is currently Professor of the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland, and Iceland at the University of Aberdeen, where he teaches in the departments of Celtic, History, and English. He has published widely on mediaeval Irish and Icelandic and modern British literature. His previous books are Icelandic Histories and Romances (Tempus, 2002), The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science (Chicago, 2007), which won two international book prizes in 2008, and Science as Romance (Pickering & Chatto, 2012).

O'Connor has written a book that constitutes a major step forward in the criticism of the early Irish saga. It deserves to be as stimulating of further discussion as it is persuasive in its own terms.

• Acknowledgements ; Note on quotations ; List of illustrations ; Introduction ; 1. The text and its authors; or, how to write a saga ; 2. A child of the Otherworld ; 3. The plunderers' dilemma ; 4. The road to Da Derga's Hostel ; 5. The house of death ; 6. The perfect spy ; 7. Sovereignty shattered ; 8. The Latin dimension: classical and biblical influence ; 9. Conaire, Saul, and sacred kingship ; 10. The message of the Togail: tract or tragedy? ; 11. Afterword: reading the Togail

Ralph O'Connor studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic and English Literature at the University of Cambridge before becoming a Junior Research Fellow in Irish and Icelandic Literature at St John's College, Cambridge. He is currently Professor of the Literature and Culture of Britain, Ireland, and Iceland at the University of Aberdeen, where he teaches in the departments of Celtic, History, and English. He has published widely on mediaeval Irish and Icelandic and modern British literature. His previous books are Icelandic Histories and Romances (Tempus, 2002), The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science (Chicago, 2007), which won two international book prizes in 2008, and Science as Romance (Pickering & Chatto, 2012).

O'Connor has written a book that constitutes a major step forward in the criticism of the early Irish saga. It deserves to be as stimulating of further discussion as it is persuasive in its own terms.

• Acknowledgements ; Note on quotations ; List of illustrations ; Introduction ; 1. The text and its authors; or, how to write a saga ; 2. A child of the Otherworld ; 3. The plunderers' dilemma ; 4. The road to Da Derga's Hostel ; 5. The house of death ; 6. The perfect spy ; 7. Sovereignty shattered ; 8. The Latin dimension: classical and biblical influence ; 9. Conaire, Saul, and sacred kingship ; 10. The message of the Togail: tract or tragedy? ; 11. Afterword: reading the Togail