Kate O'Brien

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Standard Name: O'Brien, Kate
Birth Name: Kate O'Brien
Married Name: Kate Renier
KOB , twentieth-century Irish writer, was successively a journalist, playwright, novelist, essayist, travel writer, and biographer. She was, she said, influenced by the singing voice and by dance music. Masefield said, Don't despise dance music; it is the music hearts break to.
qtd. in
Reynolds, Lorna. Kate O’Brien: A Literary Portrait. Colin Smythe; Barnes and Noble, 1987.
prelims
Her fiction often focuses on an Irish female protagonist's search for love and freedom. She shows such a quest as generally unsuccessful: love does not prove lasting, and spiritual and physical freedom often turn out to be mutually incompatible.
Black and white photograph of Kate O'Brien, sitting in an upholstered chair, with her sister Nancy O'Brien perched on its arm beside her. Both look straight at the camera. Kate is wearing a long, dark skirt and a V-necked sweater with a pattern of horizontal stripes. She has short, dark, straight hair and is holding a paper in her lap.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Cecil Frances Alexander
A century later, the writer Kate O'Brien told a probably apocryphal story about the Alexander family's ecumenism. The Viceroy of Ireland, she says, wanted to have a strictly private and apparently casual word in confidence...
Dedications E. M. Delafield
EMD completed her last novel, Late and Soon. It was published by Macmillan in April 1943 with a dedication to her friend Kate O'Brien , who looked after her during her last months.
Delafield, E. M. Late and Soon. Macmillan, 1943.
prelims, 278
Powell, Violet. The Life of a Provincial Lady. Heinemann, 1988.
179
Fictionalization E. M. Delafield
EMD is commemorated by her friend, the novelist Kate O'Brien in That Lady, published as a novel in 1946 and then as a play in 1949.
McCullen, Maurice. E. M. Delafield. Twayne, 1985.
114
Friends, Associates E. M. Delafield
EMD had many literary friends, some of whom were associated with Time and Tide magazine, including Lady Rhondda, Winifred Holtby , L. A. G. Strong , A. B. Cox , Mary Agnes Hamilton , and...
Friends, Associates E. M. Delafield
On her discharge a friend, the novelist Kate O'Brien , moved into EMD 's home to help care for her. Before the end of this month EMD saw a neurological surgeon, who confirmed that she...
Friends, Associates Antonia White
AW made several new friends during her seventies. They included Sorbonne professor Gabriel Boucé , the German poet Fred Marnau and his wife Senta , the novelist Kate O'Brien , and the actress Elizabeth Sprigge
Intertextuality and Influence Edna O'Brien
EOB has named many women writers as important to her: she includes among these Jane Austen , Emily Dickinson , Elizabeth Bowen , Anna Akhmatova , Anita Brookner , and Margaret Atwood , adding: Every...
Intertextuality and Influence Catherine Byron
As an Irish poet, CB takes inspiration from traditional tales and myths, and from such Irish writers as W. B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney (though she does not consider either of them as role models...
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
Reviews of A Game of Hide and Seek included high praise from Marghanita Laski and Elizabeth Bowen (some consolation to ET for her problems with her US publisher), but also carping which she found deeply...
Literary responses Henry Handel Richardson
The Times Literary Supplement said HHR had been scrupulous with the facts, had exercised the novelist's true function of revealing character by uncovering the secret places of the heart, and had revealed Cosima as the...
Literary responses Phyllis Bottome
The Mortal Storm became one of PB 's best-known and most popular books, though it received mixed reviews. Olga Owens , a reviewer for the Boston Transcript, criticised her for being too political, claiming...
politics Anna Wickham
In June 1938 she drew up, along with seven other women, a manifesto for The League for the Protection of the Imagination of Women.
Hepburn, James et al. “Anna Wickham: A Memoir”. The Writings of Anna Wickham, Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, pp. 1-48.
27
The League's feminist mandate was to stimulate original work...
Publishing E. M. Delafield
The success of the first Provincial Lady novel led to sequels: The Provincial Lady Goes Further in 1932, The Provincial Lady in America in 1934, and The Provincial Lady in Wartime in 1939. All four...
Publishing Elizabeth Goudge
After the appearance of her first novel, EG was taken up by Nancy Pearn and David Higham of the newly founded agents Pearn, Pollinger and Higham . They advised her to write short stories for...
Textual Production Anna Wickham
Other signatories included Kate O'Brien and Charlotte Haldane .

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

O’Brien, Kate. As Music and Splendour. Heinemann, 1958.
O’Brien, Kate. Distinguished Villa. E. Benn, 1926.
O’Brien, Kate. English Diaries and Journals. William Collins, 1943.
O’Brien, Kate, and Mary O’Neill. Farewell, Spain. Doubleday, Doran, 1937.
Boland, Eavan, and Kate O’Brien. “Introduction”. The Last of Summer, Virago, 1990, p. v - xv.
O’Brien, Kate. Mary Lavelle. Heinemann, 1936.
O’Brien, Kate. My Ireland. B. T. Batsford, 1962.
O’Brien, Kate. Pray for the Wanderer. Heinemann, 1938.
O’Brien, Kate. Presentation Parlour. Heinemann, 1963.
O’Brien, Kate. Teresa of Avila. Max Parrish, 1951.
O’Brien, Kate. That Lady. Heinemann, 1946.
O’Brien, Kate. The Ante-Room. Heinemann, 1934.
O’Brien, Kate. The Ante-Room. Virago, 1989.
O’Brien, Kate. The Flower of May. Heinemann, 1953.
O’Brien, Kate. The Land of Spices. Heinemann, 1941.
O’Brien, Kate. The Last of Summer. Heinemann, 1943.
O’Brien, Kate. The Last of Summer. Virago, 1990.
O’Brien, Kate, and Freda Bone. Without My Cloak. Heinemann, 1931.