This book surveys Irish writing in English over the last two centuries, from Maria Edgeworth to Seamus Heaney, to give the literary student and the general reader an up-to-date sense of its variety and vitality and to indicate some of the ways in which it has been described and discussed. It begins with a brief outline of Irish history, of Irish writing in Irish and Latin, and of writing in English before 1800. Later chapters consider Irish...