Private Histories: The Writing of Irish Americans, 1900-1935 [Hardcover]

Private Historiesis a complete literary history of the American Irish during the first part of the twentieth century. Ron Ebest offers a fresh perspective on familiar novelists, dramatists, and poets, introduces readers to a number of important writers who are often overlooked, and reveals rarely considered aspects of Irish-American social history.

Ebest analyzes themes of particular importance to early twentieth-century Irish Americanssuch as religion, marriage, family, eceonomic hardship, social status, and educationin the writings of well-known authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Eugene ONeill. He also explores these issues in the works of lesser known authors such as the Vanity Fair satirist Anne OHagan, labor activist and novelist Jim Tully, muckraking journalist Clara Laughlin, and the mystery writer John T. McIntyre.

Ebests highly readable style makesPrivate Historiesan excellent book for undergraduate and graduate courses on Irish-American literature and history, as well as for general readers interested in this fascinating subject.

Ron Ebest is assistant professor of literature and writing at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, St. Louis, Missouri.

Ebests superb interdisciplinary study,Private Histories: The Writing of Irish Americans, 19001935, follows in the tradition of Charles Fannings landmark studies of this genre in the nineteenth century and advances our knowledge of this literature.Private Historiesis both a definitive survey of Irish American writing in the pre-depression era as well as a major historiographical assessment of the role of this writing in shaping what is known about Irish America in those years. History: Reviews of New Books

 . . . a critical literary history that compares the literary representation of Irish American life in the early decades of the 20th century with the historical context . . . [T]he study is particularly l#*