Publisher's Synopsis
This collection focuses both on the formation of Irish national identity evident within nineteenth-century British culture and on the ways in which conceptions of Irishness were related to an understanding of a distinctly English character in British literature. Topics include the translation of Irish works into English, the impact of English criticism on Irish fiction, the significance of the mainstream press, and the ways in which English authors attempted to embody Irish ideas within their fictional works while maintaining their English readership. In different and distinctive ways, all the essays, by Neil McCaw, Rolf Loeber, Joep Leersson, Leon Litvack, Anne MacCarthy, Kathleen Constable, Andrew Blake, Jane Elizabeth Dougherty, Michael de Nie, Carla King, and Maureen O'Connor, suggest the fundamental significance of the nineteenth century, if not explicitly the Victorian period, in the evolution of notions of English/British identity.
