Over the past twenty years, interest in Irish literature has risen dramatically across the globe. Irish Literature, 1750-1900: An Anthology presents in one volume the rich body of Irish writing between the Enlightenment and Modernism.

Selected Contents by Theme and Genre. Introduction. Editorial Note. Acknowledgments. Chronology of Selected Historical Events and Irish Novels. Map of Ireland. THOMAS SHERIDAN (1719-1788). from An Humble Appeal to the Publick (1758). A Proposal. The Brave Irishman: Or, Captain O’Blunder. A Farce (1759). FRANCES SHERIDAN (1724-1766). from The Discovery (1763). Prologue. Ode to Patience (wr. 1764). OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774). from The Citizen of the World (1762). Letter XVII. from Letter XXXII. The Deserted Village (1770). from Poems (1775). Retaliation. EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797). from A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). from Part I. XI. SOCIETY and SOLITUDE. XIII. SYMPATHY. XIV. The effects of SYMPATHY in the distresses of others. XV. Of the effects of TRAGEDY. from Part II. I. Of the passion caused by the SUBLIME. II. TERROR. III. OBSCURITY. from Part III. I. Of BEAUTY. XXVIII. The Sublime and Beautiful compared. from Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770). ISAAC BICKERSTAFFE (1733-c.1812). The Captive: A Comic Opera (1769). JOHN LESLIE (fl. 1772). Killarney: A Poem (1772). JOSEPH COOPER WALKER (1761-1810) and TURLOUGH O’CAROLAN (1670-1738). from Walker’s Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards (1786). Bumpers, ’Squire Jones (imitated from Carolan). Carolan’s Monody on the Death of Mary Mac Guire. CHARLOTTE BROOKE (c.1740-1793). from Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789). from Preface. Elegy (by Edmond Ryan, or Edmond of the Hill). Song (by Patrick Linden). ELIZABETH RYVES (1750-1797). from Poems on Several Occasions (1777). Ode to Sensibility. A Ballad, Written in June, 1775. Song. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN (1751-1816). St. Patrick’s Day; Or, the Scheming Lieutenant. A Comic Opera (1788). from Union of Ireland with Great Britain (parliamentary speech, January 23, 1799). Abolition of Slavery (parliamentary speech, March 17, 1807). MARY O’BRIEN (fl. 1790). from The Political Monitor (1790). Ode, For the Prince of Wales’s Birth Day. Paddy’s Opinion: An Irish Ballad. JAMES PORTER (1752-1798). from Billy Bluff and ’Squire Firebrand: Or, A Sample of the Times (1796). Northern Star, May 21, 1796. Northern Star, July 18, 1796. Northern Star, August 15, 1796. PADDY’S RESOURCE (c.1800). The Exiled Irishman's Lamentation. The United Real Reformer. Edward. WILLIAM DRENNAN (1754-1820). from Fugitive Pieces in Verse and Prose (1815). Erin. Wake. Lines, On Some Improvements in the Town of Belfast, Superintended by the Marchioness of D—. Glendalloch. MARY LEADBEATER (1758-1826). from Extracts and Original Anecdotes (1794). On Youth, Beauty, Wealth and Virtue (Addrest to a Child). Divine Odes. from Poems (1808). The Negro (Addressed to Edmund Burke). The Triumph of Terror. from Cottage Dialogues among the Irish Peasantry (1813). Dialogue XVIII: Chastisement. JOHN CORRY (fl. 1797-1825). from Odes and Elegies, Descriptive and Sentimental, with The Patriot: A Poem (1797). Death: An Ode. Peace: An Elegy. The Patriot: A Poem, Descriptive of an Invasion of Ireland by the Danes, and their Expulsion by the Irish. from The Detector of Quackery; Or, Analyser of Medical, Philosophical, Political, Dramatic, and Literary Imposture (1802). from Medical Empiricism. MARIA EDGEWORTH (1768-1849) and RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH (1744-1817). from Essay on Irish Bulls (1802). Chapter I. Vulgar Errours. Chapter VI. Little Dominick. from Popular Tales (1804). The Limerick Gloves. JAMES ORR (1770-1816). from Poems, On Various Subjects (1804). Elegy, On the Death of Mr. Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Poet. A Prayer, Written on the eve of the unfortunate 7th of June, 1798. The Banks of Larne. Elegy, Written in the Church-yard of Templecorran. The Passengers. MARY TIGHE (1772-1810). from Psyche, With Other Poems (1811). Written at the Eagle’s Nest, Killarney. Written at Killarney. On Leaving Killarney. The Shawl's Petition, To Lady Asgill. Bryan Byrne, of Glenmalure. THOMAS DERMODY (1775-1802). from Poems (1789). Contemplative Verses On the Tombs in Drumcondra Church-Yard, in the Manner of Gray. from Poems, Consisting of Essays, Lyric, Elegiac, &c. (1792). The Poet’s Pen, A Fable. To Miss Sidney and Miss Olivia Owenson. from Poems, Moral and Descriptive (1800). The Days of Yore. THOMAS MOORE (1779-1852). from Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems (1806). Epistle II: To Miss M—–e (From Norfolk, in Virginia, November, 1803). To Mrs. Henry T–ghe, On Reading Her “Psyche”. from Intercepted Letters; Or, the Two-Penny Post-Bag (1813). Preface. Letter I. Letter VII. from Irish Melodies (1807-1834). Oh! Breathe Not His Name (1807). Take Back the Virgin Page (1807). from Letter to the Marchioness Dowager of Donegal (1810). Oh! Blame Not the Bard (1810). The Irish Peasant to His Mistress (1810). The Prince’s Day (1811). By That Lake Whose Gloomy Shore (1811). She Is Far from the Land (1811). The Minstrel-Boy (1813). Shall the Harp Then Be Silent? (1821). from Lalla Rookh (1817). from [The Fire-Worshippers]. from Fables for the Holy Alliance (1823). Lines on the Entry of the Austrians into Naples, 1821. SYDNEY OWENSON, LADY MORGAN (c.1783-1859). from Twelve Original Hibernian Melodies (1805). from Preface. Ah who is that; or Emunh a Cnuic, or Ned of the Hills. When floating o’er; or Cathleen Nolan. Oh! Gracy Once I Thought Thee Mine. from Lay of an Irish Harp (1807). Twilight (Fragment XXII). from Absenteeism, No. 1 (1824). WILLIAM CARLETON (1794-1869). from Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1833). Wildgoose Lodge. from Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1843). from Auto-biographical Introduction. JEREMIAH JOHN CALLANAN (1795-1829). The Convict of Clonmel (1823). from The Recluse of Inchidony, and Other Poems (1830). Written to a Young Lady, On entering a Convent. Lines. Hussa Tha Measg na Realtán More. The Outlaw of Loch Lene. JOHN BANIM (1798-1842) and MICHAEL BANIM (1796-1874). from Chaunt of the Cholera, Songs for Ireland (1831). Advertisement. The Irish Mother to Her Child. Song. The Irish Peasant to His Priest. from The Bit O’ Writin’ and Other Tales (1838). The Church-Yard Watch. SAMUEL LOVER (1797-1868). from Legends and Stories of Ireland (1832). from Preface. King O’Toole and St. Kevin: A Legend of Glendalough. O’CONNELL’S CALL AND PAT’S REPLY (Lithograph, 1843). THE NATION: THE EARLY YEARS (1842-1844). The Nation (1842). My Grave (1842). How to Make an Irish Story (1843). A Voice from America (1843). Convicted Criminals (1844). JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN (1803-1849). The Philosopher and the Child (1833). The Jacobite Relics of Ireland (1841). Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan. from German Anthology (1845). An Irish Lamentation (by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). Advice (1846). The Warning Voice (1846). Dark Rosaleen (1846). A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century (1846). The Lovely Land (1846). Leonora (1846). The Nameless One (1849). from The Poets and Poetry of Munster (1849). A Whack at the Whigs (by Andrew Magrath). Edmund of the Hill. from Fragment of an Unpublished Autobiography (1882). SAMUEL FERGUSON (1810-1886). The Forging of the Anchor (1832). [Thomas Davis: An Elegy] (1847). from Lays of the Western Gael, and Other Poems (1865). The Burial of King Cormac. Willy Gilliland: An Ulster Ballad. from Versions from the Irish. Lament over the Ruins of the Abbey of Timoleague (by John Collins). Grace Nugent (by Carolan). from Poems (1880). The Morning’s Hinges. Dear Wilde: An Elegy. AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE (1814-1902). from Poems (1855). To Burns’s “Highland Mary”. The Year of Sorrow – Ireland – 1849. from Irish Odes and Other Poems (1869). from Preface. Ode X, An Irish “God Save the Queen”. On a Recent Volume of Poems. JOSEPH SHERIDAN LEFANU (1814-1873). A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family (1839). DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY (1817-1882). from Ballads, Poems, and Lyrics (1850). The Pillar Towers of Ireland. The Living Land. The Voice in the Desert. Afghanistan. A Walk by the Bay of Dublin. from Underglimpses, and Other Poems (1857). Spirit Voices. DION BOUCICAULT (1820-1890). Arrah-na-Pogue; Or, the Wicklow Wedding (1864). LADY JANE WILDE (1821-1896). from Poems (1864). The Famine Year. A Supplication. Ruins. La Via Dolorosa. from Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland (1887). The Midnight Ride: A Peasant’s Tale. The Bards. from St. Patrick. The Well of the Book. St. Patrick and the Serpent. St. Bridget. St. Kevin. from Notes on Men, Women, and Books (1891). Thomas Moore. WILLIAM ALLINGHAM (1824-1889). from The Music-Master, A Love Story, and Two Series of Night and Day Songs (1855). The Fairies: A Nursery Song. The Maids of Elfen-Mere. from Songs, Ballads, and Stories (1877). The Winding Banks of Erne: Or, the Emigrant’s Adieu to Ballyshanny. from Evil May-Day (1882). Sleepy. BRIDGET KAVANAGH (c.1800-1887) and JULIA KAVANAGH (1824-1877). from The Pearl Fountain and Other Fairy Tales (1876). The Pearl Fountain. THOMAS D’ARCY MCGEE (1825-1868). from Poems by Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Chiefly Written in America (1854). Hail to the Land. Experience. St. Patrick’s of the Woods. from Canadian Ballads and Occasional Verses (1858). Freedom’s Journey. OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900). from Poems (1881). from Eleutheria. Sonnet to Liberty. Ave Imperatrix. To Milton. Theoretikos. from Rosa Mystica. Resquiescat. In the Gold Room: A Harmony. from The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888). The Selfish Giant. from The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue (1889). The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). KATHARINE TYNAN (1861-1931). from Ballads and Lyrics (1891). The Wild Geese (A Lament for the Irish Jacobites). from An Isle in the Water (1895). The Unlawful Mother. from The Cabinet of Irish Literature (1902). from Introduction. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939). from A Book of Irish Verse (1895). from Introduction. DORA SIGERSON (1866-1918). from Verses (1893). Man's Discontent. Spring Song – To Ireland. The Flight of the Wild Geese. What We Must Do. Bibliography. Index of Titles and First Lines of Verse. Index to Headnotes and Notes.

Over the past twenty years, interest in Irish literature has risen dramatically across the globe. Irish Literature, 1750–1900: An Anthology presents in one volume the rich body of Irish writing between the Enlightenment and Modernism. This expansive anthology offers full texts of short plays, fiction, and poetry by a wide selection of prominent writers, including Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Maria Edgeworth, Thomas Moore, James Clarence Mangan, Samuel Ferguson, Lady Jane Wilde, and Oscar Wilde. It features a selection of collaboratively authored works by the Edgeworths, the Banims, and the Kavanaghs, as well as excerpts from collaborative publications such as Paddy’s Resource and The Nation. Special attention is paid to the work of Ireland's women writers, as well as a number of Ulster poets and writers who emigrated to North America during this period. Designed specifically for classroom use, this essential resource offers a variety of helpful features for students, including a chronology of historical events and major literary works of the era.