The Letters of Liam O'Flaherty »

The collected annotated letters (more than 450) of Liam O'Flaherty, one of Ireland's greatest novelists, reveal his early struggles, the ignominy of being banned, his temperamental difficulties caused largely by shell-shock, and his emergence in the early thirties as an independent writer.

O'Flaherty was torn between his pride at having fought in the Irish Guards, his horror at trench warfare, and his dislike of British imperialism. As an Irish Republican, he mocked some aspects of Irish society, especially the influence of the Catholic Church. Some of his feelings about man and nature, explored in his short stories, have been upheld by the worldwide ecology-awareness movements of today.