Molly Keane

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Standard Name: Keane, Molly
Birth Name: Mary Nesta Skrine
Married Name: Molly Keane
Pseudonym: M. J. Farrell
Nickname: Molly Keane
MK had two distinct phases in her writing career. Between 1926 and 1961 she wrote, under the pseudonym M. J. Farrell, eleven novels and four plays. After almost twenty years of silence, she published further novels and other works under her own name. MK was primarily a satirist, and her ongoing target was the privileged Anglo-Irish world in which she grew up. She has been compared to Elizabeth Bowen , Maria Edgeworth , and Jonathan Swift .
Breen, Mary. “Piggies and Spoilers of Girls: The Representation of Sexuality in the Novels of Molly Keane”. Sex, Nation and Dissent in Irish Writing, St Martin’s Press, 1997, pp. 202-20.
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Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Jenkins observed that EB , elegant as she was in style, was highly sexed and attractive to men. She bore about her the aroma of passionate experiences.Molly Keane wrote that at parties all...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Bowen
EB loved Oxford (where she and her husband spent ten years) and became a social success there. She met and became friends with John and Susan Buchan , and it was through them that she...
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...
Literary responses Dodie Smith
Theatre World found this immeasurably Dodie Smith's best play, expressing admiration for her vivid sense of character and situation.
“Review of Dodie Smith Dear OctopusTheatre World, Oct. 1938.
(October 1938)
James Agate wrote a flattering review that even compared some of her characters to...
Performance of text Elizabeth Bowen
EB 's single play, Castle Anna (written in collaboration with John Perry , who was also at this time writing plays with Molly Keane ), was performed in London.
Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.
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Textual Features Caroline Blackwood
CB 's style consists largely of enumeration. The family members are always named by their relation to the narrator—my father, Aunt Lavinia—even while they are children. Lists abound. Accretion of detail is...
Textual Features Kate O'Brien
KOB refers to women writers here and there in her text—casually to Daisy Ashford and Nancy Mitford , admiringly to Maria Edgeworth and Lady Gregory (the latter admittedly for her life rather than her writings)—and...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Diana Athill
Part two, introduced by some comment on the nature of the relationship between writer and publisher, provides sketches and stories of many of the authors whom DA worked with. Though she does not belabour the...
Travel Muriel Spark
In 1963 she spent from January to September in London, Edinburgh, Paris, and Cork in Ireland. Back in Ireland in the early 1970s, she rented Molly Keane 's house, Dysert at Ardmore in Waterford.
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009.
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Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Keane, Molly. Conversation Piece. Collins, 1932.
Keane, Molly, and John Perry. Dazzling Prospect. Samuel French, 1961.
Keane, Molly. Devoted Ladies. Collins, 1934.
Keane, Molly. Good Behaviour. A. Deutsch, 1981.
Keane, Molly. Loving and Giving. A. Deutsch, 1988.
Keane, Molly et al. Molly Keane’s Ireland: An Anthology. HarperCollins, 1993.
Keane, Molly, and Linda Smith. Molly Keane’s Nursery Cooking. Macdonald, 1985.
Keane, Molly, and Charles Johnson Payne. Red Letter Days. Collins, 1933.
Keane, Molly, and John Perry. Spring Meeting. Samuel French, 1938.
Keane, Molly. The Knight of Cheerful Countenance. Mills and Boon, 1926.
Keane, Molly. The Rising Tide. Collins, 1937.
Keane, Molly. Time After Time. A. Deutsch, 1983.
Keane, Molly, and John Perry. Treasure Hunt. Samuel French, 1952.
Keane, Molly. Two Days in Aragon. Collins, 1941.
Keane, Molly. Young Entry. Elkin Mathews and Marrot, 1928.