Dervla Murphy

DM , cosmopolitan Irishwoman, is primarily a travel writer, with more than twenty books to her credit. She excels at vivid rendering of human international contact (often made over drinks), at trenchant and well-informed socio-political analysis (perhaps above all of Northern Ireland), and at the autobiographical aspects of her craft. Beginning in the later twentieth century, the political and social aspects of her books became steadily more important and her urge to seek out trouble spots began to predominate over the need to seek out beautiful and remote places.
  • BirthName: Dervilla Mary Murphy
  • Nickname: Dervla

Milestones

28 November 1931

DM was born at Cappoquin in County Waterford; because her mother soon afterwards developed rheumatoid arthritis, she remained an only child.
Murphy, Dervla. Wheels within Wheels. J. Murray, 1979.
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June 1965

DM published her first book, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, which characteristically combines autobiography and travel writing.
Dated from the London Library acquisition stamp.
British Books in Print. J. Whitaker and Sons, 1874–1987.
1979
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

September 1979

DM published an autobiography, Wheels within Wheels.
British Books in Print. J. Whitaker and Sons, 1874–1987.
1982
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

Biography

Birth and Influences

28 November 1931

DM was born at Cappoquin in County Waterford; because her mother soon afterwards developed rheumatoid arthritis, she remained an only child.
Murphy, Dervla. Wheels within Wheels. J. Murray, 1979.
1-2