Elke D'hoker - Böcker

This Companion examines the manifold interactions between Irish literature and the periodical press since the nineteenth century. The thirty original contributions map a highly diverse Irish and international magazine landscape that has played a crucial role in fostering, mediating, circulating and translating Irish fiction. By bringing new archival material to bear on canonical writers such as Emily Lawless, Mary Lavin, John McGahern and James Joyce, this book showcases cutting-edge research situated at the crossroads of Irish studies, periodical criticism and the digital humanities. It offers a variegated view of the different agents in transnational periodical networks, investigating the role of authors, editors, publishers and readers in Ireland, as well as considering the circulation of Irish writers in British and American publications. It also recovers forgotten voices by providing the first comprehensive critical accounts of little magazines including A Celtic Christmas, Honest Ulsterman, Kilkenny Magazine, Broadsheet, Poetry Ireland, The Dubliner and Surge. Altogether, The Edinburgh Companion to Irish Literature and Periodical Culture demonstrates the pivotal role of periodicals in the codification of genres and the formation of an Irish literary canon.

This collection of original essays highlights the intertwined fates of the modern short story and periodical culture in the period 1880–1950, the heyday of magazine short fiction in Britain. Through case studies that focus on particular magazines, short stories and authors, chapters investigate the presence, status and functioning of short stories within a variety of periodical publications – highbrow and popular, mainstream and specialised, middlebrow and avant-garde. Examining the impact of social and publishing networks on the production, dissemination and reception of short stories, it foregrounds the ways in which magazines and periodicals shaped conversations about the short story form and prompted or provoked writers into developing the genre.

Explores the relationship between magazine culture and the development of the modern short story form in BritainForegrounds the role of magazine culture in the development of the modern short story formAnalyses a wide range of publications, from standard illustrated popular magazines to avant-garde little magazinesSheds new light on well-known publications and examines others that are as yet obscure or understudiedExplores the impact of social and publishing networks on the production, dissemination and reception of short storiesHelps recover neglected writers/editors and cast new light on more canonical onesThis collection of original essays highlights the intertwined fates of the modern short story and periodical culture in the period 1880 1950, the heyday of magazine short fiction in Britain. Through case studies that focus on particular magazines, short stories and authors, chapters investigate the presence, status and functioning of short stories within a variety of periodical publications highbrow and popular, mainstream and specialised, middlebrow and avant-garde. Examining the impact of social and publishing networks on the production, dissemination and reception of short stories, it foregrounds the ways in which magazines and periodicals shaped conversations about the short story form and prompted or provoked writers into developing the genre.

After a decade in which women writers have gradually been given more recognition in the study of Irish literature, this collection proposes a reappraisal of Irish women’s writing by inviting dialogues with new or hitherto marginalised critical frameworks as well as with foreign and transnational literary traditions. Several essays explore how Irish women writers engaged with European themes and traditions through the genres of travel writing, the historical novel, the monologue and the fairy tale. Other contributions are concerned with the British context in which some texts were published and argue for the existence of Irish inflections of phenomena such as the New Woman, suffragism or vegetarianism. Further chapters emphasise the transnational character of Irish women’s writing by applying continental theory and French feminist thinking to various texts; in other chapters new developments in theory are applied to Irish texts for the first time. Casting the efforts of Irish women in a new light, the collection also includes explorations of the work of neglected or emerging authors who have remained comparatively ignored by Irish literary criticism.

Often hailed as a ‘national genre’, the short story has a long and distinguished tradition in Ireland and continues to fascinate readers and writers alike. Critical appreciation of the Irish short story, however, has laboured for too long under the normative conception of it as a realist form, used to depict quintessential truths about Ireland and Irish identity. This definition fails to do justice to the richness and variety of short stories published in Ireland since the 1850s. This collection aims to open up the critical debate on the Irish short story to the many different concerns, influences and innovations by which it has been formed. The essays gathered here consider the diverse national and international influences on the Irish short story and investigate its genealogy. They recover the short fiction of writers neglected in previous literary histories and highlight unexpected strands in the work of established writers. They scrutinize established traditions and use cutting-edge critical frameworks to discern new trends. Taken together, the essays contribute to a more encompassing and enabling view of the Irish short story as a hybrid, multivalent and highly flexible literary form, which is forever being reshaped to meet new insights, new influences and new realities.

This volume deals with the occurrence and development of unreliable first-person narration in twentieth century Western literature. The different articles in this collection approach this topic both from the angle of literary theory and through a detailed reading of literary texts. By addressing questions concerning the functions, characteristics and types of unreliability, this collection contributes to the current theoretical debate about unreliable narration. At the same time, the collection highlights the different uses to which unreliability has been put in different contexts, poetical traditions and literary movements. It does so by tracing the unreliable first-person narrator in a variety of texts from Dutch, German, American, British, French, Italian, Polish, Danish and Argentinean literature. In this way, this volume significantly extends the traditional ‘canon’ of narrative unreliability. This collection combines essays from some of the foremost theoreticians of unreliability (James Phelan, Ansgar Nünning) with essays from experts in different national traditions. The result is a collection that approaches the ‘case’ of narrative unreliability from a new and more varied perspective.

This book traces the development of the modern short story in the hands of Irish women writers from the 1890s to the present. George Egerton, Somerville and Ross, Elizabeth Bowen, Mary Lavin, Edna O’Brien, Anne Enright and Claire Keegan are only some of the many Irish women writers who have made lasting contributions to the genre of the modern short story - yet their achievements have often been marginalized in literary histories, which typically define the Irish short story in terms of its oral heritage, nationalist concerns, rural realism and outsider-hero. Through a detailed investigation of the short fiction of fifteen prominent writers, this study aims to open up this critical conceptualization of the Irish short story to the formal properties and thematic concerns women writers bring to the genre. What stands out in thematic terms is an abiding interest in human relations, whether of love, the family or the larger community. In formal terms, this book traces the overalldevelopment of the Irish short story, highlighting both the lines of influence that connect these writers and the specific use each individual author makes of the short story form.

This book traces the development of the modern short story in the hands of Irish women writers from the 1890s to the present. George Egerton, Somerville and Ross, Elizabeth Bowen, Mary Lavin, Edna O’Brien, Anne Enright and Claire Keegan are only some of the many Irish women writers who have made lasting contributions to the genre of the modern short story - yet their achievements have often been marginalized in literary histories, which typically define the Irish short story in terms of its oral heritage, nationalist concerns, rural realism and outsider-hero. Through a detailed investigation of the short fiction of fifteen prominent writers, this study aims to open up this critical conceptualization of the Irish short story to the formal properties and thematic concerns women writers bring to the genre. What stands out in thematic terms is an abiding interest in human relations, whether of love, the family or the larger community. In formal terms, this book traces the overalldevelopment of the Irish short story, highlighting both the lines of influence that connect these writers and the specific use each individual author makes of the short story form.