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Article: Helen O'Connell, Ireland and the Fiction of Improvement.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Irish University Review: a journal of Irish Studies
- Article date:
- March 22, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Irish University Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Helen O'Connell, Ireland and the Fiction of Improvement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 240 pages. GBP 53.00 (hardback).
In an absorbing study of Irish literary culture in the post-Union period, Ireland and the Fiction of Improvement brings together a body of familiar and less well-known authors to describe a hitherto neglected tradition of 'improvement' writing which, its author argues, represents a regional expression of the 'stable, ... liberal realism' that dominated nineteenth-century print culture in English (p.1). Examining the fictional narratives and instructive dialogues of improvement tracts, Helen O'Connell finds a body of writing which ...