Abstract
The century was four years old when Molly Keane was born in County Kildare in Ireland in a Georgian manor on 300 acres to a father who was a gentleman farmer — which meant he passed his days in energetic sporting recreations — and a mother who was celebrated as the Poet of the Seven Glens, and wrote unswervingly sentimental verse about a loyal and humble Irish peasantry with whom her contact was purely inspirational. Her own children she ignored completely. Like Mummie in Good Behaviour, ‘she had us and she longed to forget the horror of it for once and for all’ (13). Molly was born into a vanishing world of nannies and maids and gardeners and dressing for dinner every day. Now she lives in a seaside cottage with a half door and a daily help. She has enormous wisdom and the ironic wit of having both seen through and seen out an era. Her life and her literature both have been pared down to essentials. ‘I have come to believe that the two strongest motivations in life are sex and snobbery,’ Molly Keane says; ‘and I do most awfully believe in love’ (Boylan, Good Housekeeping, 15).
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A Bibliography of Writings by Molly Keane
Novels
Young Entry (London: W. Collins and Sons, Ltd., 1928; Virago, 1979. New York: Holt, 1929).
Taking Chances (London: Elkin Mathews and Marrot, Ltd., 1929; Virago, 1987. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1930; New York: Viking Penguin, 1987).
Mad Puppetstown (London: Collins, 1931; Virago, 1985. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1932; Viking Penguin, 1985).
Conversation Piece (London: Collins, 1932; Virago, 1991. American edition: Point-to-Point, New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1933).
Devoted Ladies (London: Collins, 1934; Virago, 1984. New York: Viking Penguin, 1984).
Full House (London: Collins, 1935; Virago, 1986; Virago, 1986. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1935; New York: Viking Penguin, 1987).
The Rising Tide (London: Collins, 1937; Virago, 1984. New York: Macmillan, 1938; Viking Penguin, 1985).
Two Days in Aragon (London: Collins, 1941; Virago, 1985. New York: Viking Penguin, 1985).
Loving Without Tears (London: Collins, 1951; Virago, 1988. American edition: The Enchanting Witch, New York: Crowell, 1951).
Treasure Hunt (London: Collins, 1952; Virago, 1990).
Good Behaviour (London: Andre Deutsch, 1981. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981).
Time After Time (London: Andre Deutsch, 1983. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984).
Loving and Giving (London: Andre Deutsch, 1988; American edition: Queen Lear, New York: Obelisk/E. P. Dutton, 1989).
Books
Red Letter Days (with Snaffles, a pseudonym) (London: Collins, 1933; Andre Deutsch, 1987).
Molly Keane’s Nursery Cooking (London: Macdonald, 1985).
Sybil Connolly, In An Irish House, foreword by Keane (New York: Harmony Books, 1988).
Edith Oenone Somerville and Violet Martin Ross, The Real Charlotte, introduction by Keane (London: Hogarth Press, 1988).
The Selected Letters of Somerville and Ross, edited by Gifford Lewis, foreword by Molly Keane (London and Boston: Faber, 1989).
The Selected Letters of Somerville and Ross, Through Connemara in a Governess Cart, introduction by Keane (London: Virago Press, 1990).
Plays
Spring Meeting: A Play in Three Acts, with John Perry (London: Collins, 1938).
Ducks and Drakes (1941).
Guardian Angel (1941).
Treasure Hunt: A Comedy in Three Acts, with John Perry (London: W. Collins and Sons, 1950).
Dazzling Prospect: A Farcical Comedy in Two Acts (with John Perry; 1961).
Articles and Reviews
‘Molly Keane’s Irish Cottage’, Architectural Digest 43 (January 1986): 136–9; 173.
[untitled memoir] in Portrait of the Artist As A Young Girl, ed. by John Quinn (London: Methuen, 1987).
‘The Slow Death of a House’[Walled Gardens: Scenes From An Anglo-Irish Childhood]. The Spectator (5 May 1990): 35.
A Bibliography of Writings about Molly Keane Articles and Reviews
Angier, Carole, ‘Kind of Loving’ [Loving and Giving], New Statesman (7 October 1988): 34.
Billington, Rachel, ‘Fictions of Class’ [Good Behaviour], The New York Times Book Review (9 August 1981): 13, 34.
Blackwood, Caroline, ‘Afterword’, Full House by M. J. Farrell [Molly Keane] (London: Virago Press, Ltd., 1986; New York: Penguin Books, 1987).
Boyd, William, ‘Revenge of the Innocent’ [Good Behaviour], Times Literary Supplement (TLS) (9 October 1981): 1154.
Boylan, Clare, ‘Introduction’, Taking Chances by M. J. Farrell [Molly Keane] (London: Virago Press, Ltd., 1987. New York: Penguin Books, 1987).
Brookner, Anita, ‘New Interests in an Old Setting’ [Loving and Giving], The Spectator (24 September 1988): 37.
Craig, Patricia, ‘Sportive and Sporty’ [Loving and Giving], TLS (9–15 September 1988): 983.
Crisp, Quentin, ‘Castle Rackrent’ [Time After Time], New York Magazine (16 January 1984): 60.
Devlin, Polly, ‘Introduction’, Devoted Ladies by M. J. Farrell [Molly Keane] (London: Virago Press, Ltd., 1984. New York: Penguin Books, 1984).
Devlin, Polly, ‘Introduction’, Mad Puppetstown by M. J. Farrell [Molly Keane] (London: Virago Press, Ltd., 1985. New York: Penguin Books, 1985).
Devlin, Polly, ‘Introduction’, The Rising Tide by M. J. Farrell [Molly Keane] (London: Virago Press Ltd., 1984; New York: Penguin Books, 1985).
Devlin, Polly, ‘Introduction’, Two Days in Aragon by M. J. Farrell [Molly Keane] (London: Virago Press, Ltd., 1985; New York: Penguin Books, 1985).
Emerson, Sally, ‘Review: Good Behaviour’, The Illustrated London News (September 1981): 70.
Glastonbury, Marion, ‘Last Judgments’ [Time After Time]. New Statesman (7 October 1983): 27.
Gordon, Mary, ‘Vanities of the Hunting Class’ [Devoted Ladies and The Rising Tide], The New York Times Book Review (29 September 1985): 43.
Holland, Mary, ‘Codes’[ Good Behaviour], New Statesman (13 November 1981): 26.
Hosmer, Robert E. Jr. (with Marjorie Podolsky), ‘Molly Keane’, in An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers, ed. by Paul Schlueter and June Schlueter (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1988): 269–70.
Jefferson, Margot, ‘Every Other Inch a Lady’ [Good Behaviour and Time After Time], The Village Voice (17 April 1984): 42.
Kierstead, Mary D., ‘Profiles: A Great Old Breakerawayer’, The New Yorker (13 October 1986): 97–107; 111–12.
Kreilkamp, Vera, ‘The Persistent Pattern: Molly Keane’s Recent Big House Fiction’, The Massachusetts Review, xxvii (3) (Autumn, 1987): 453–60.
Latimer, Margery, ‘Young Folks’ [Young Entry], New York Herald Tribune Books (10 March 1929): 18.
O’Toole, Bridget, ‘Three Writers of the Big House: Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, and Jennifer Johnston’, in Across A Roaring Hill: The Protestant Imagination in Modern Ireland: Essays in Honour of John Hewitt, ed. by Gerald Dawe and Edna Longley (Belfast and Dover, New Hampshire: The Blackstaff Press, 1985): 124–38.
Pritchett, V. S., ‘The Solace of Intrigue’ [Good Behaviour and Time After Time], The New York Review of Books (12 April 1984): 7–8.
Southron, Jane Spence, ‘Valiant is the Word for Carrie and other Recent Works of Fiction: Shadow of Madness’ [Full House], The New York Times Book Review (27 October 1935): 7.
Tyler, Anne, ‘The War between the Swifts’ [Time After Time], The New York Times Book Review (22 January 1984): 6.
Wallace, Margaret, ‘Devoted Ladies and Other Recent Works of Fiction’, The New York Times Book Review (10 June 1934): 7.
Interviews
Blackwood, Caroline, ‘The Unspeakable and the Eatable’, Harper’s and Queen (November 1985): 200–1; 248; 250.
Boylan, Clare, ‘That Certain Style of Molly Keane’, Good Housekeeping (October 1983): 15; 17; 19–20.
Boylan, Clare, ‘A Testament to the Spirit and Endurance of a Remarkable Woman’, The Sunday Times (11 September 1988): G9.
Devlin, Polly, ‘Molly Keane Talking with Polly Devlin’, in Writing Lives: Conversations Between Women Writers, ed. by Mary Chamberlain (London: Virago Press, 1988): 119–35.
Guppy, Shusha, ‘Writers at Work: Molly Keane’, The Paris Review (forthcoming).
Ross, Jean W., ‘CA Interview: Molly Keane’, Contemporary Authors 114: 264–6.
Miscellaneous
Contemporary Authors, Volume 114, 263–6.
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 31, 230–6.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 Robert E. Hosmer Jr.
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Boylan, C. (1993). Sex, Snobbery and the Strategies of Molly Keane. In: Hosmer, R.E. (eds) Contemporary British Women Writers. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22565-1_8
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