Moorings

A Bulletin of All Things George Moore

No 1 : Summer 2007 Books

Introduction
Part I: Portraits of the Artists
"I No Longer Underrate Him": The Question of Moore's Value - Adrian Frazier
More Than Dramas of Sterility: Portraits of the Artist in Moore's Fiction - Fabienne Gaspari
Hysteria, Melancholia, and the Artist Manqué in Vain Fortune - Ann Heilmann

Part II: Wider Horizons
George Moore's The Untilled Field: The Irish Short Story at a Crossroads - Fabienne Garcier
Georges Moore in the Shadow of Voltaire: Two Briseurs de Fers - Siofra Pierse
The Reception of George Moore in Spain: Silence, Censorship and Distortion - Alberto Lázaro
"The Labyrinth of Selection" in Confessions of a Young Man - Munira H. Mutran

Part III: Smooth Passages
Lost in Translation? George Moore's The Pastoral Loves of Daphnis and Chloe and rewriting Longus - Konstantin Doulamis
His Father's Son: The Political Inheritance - Mary Pierse
The Brook Kerith and the Search for the Historical Jesus - Peter Christensen

Part IV: Close Encounters
An t-Úr-Ghort and The Untilled Field - Pádraigín Riggs
"Mildred Lawson": A Reinterpretation Based on the Forgotten Serial Version of 1888 - Brendan Fleming
Charting an Aesthetic Journey: The Case of Esther Waters - Christine Huguet
Face to Face, One on One: George Moore in the Contact Zone - Lucy McDiarmid

Part V: The Gender Question Marks
George Moore: The Committed Feminist - M Elena Jaime De Pablos
"A Nice Little Convey of Love-Birds": Animal Imagery and Female Representation in A Drama in Muslin - Catherine Smith
Singular Celibates: Narrative Seduction in Moore and Joyce - Michael O'Sullivan
Celibacy and its Artistic Discontents - Mark Llewellyn

THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES OF GEORGE MOORE: GENDER AND GENRE
EDITED BY ANN HEILMANN AND MARK LLEWELLYN
CONSULTING EDITOR: ADRIAN FRAZIER
PICKERING AND CHATTO, 2007
5 VOLUMES; 1936pp; ISBN 978 1 85196 841 1

George Moore (1852–1933) was one of the most influential and versatile writers and journalists of the turn of the century. Bridging movements as disparate as high realism/naturalism and mysticism, his narrative work is also significant for its concern with emerging psychoanalytical approaches. Much of his writing crossed boundaries: generically, thematically, psychologically and conceptually – between autobiography, fiction and folklore, hysteria, sex and gender. Despite his significant impact on fin-de-siècle culture and literature, Moore’s works have not been readily available.

This five-volume, reset critical edition addresses current scholarly interest in Moore, making available his generally neglected short story collections. Each original collection of stories contains: an introduction, including detailed contextualisations and in-depth textual analyses; a bibliographic note on the text; plus editorial notes; textual variants; an appendix of Moore’s revisions to the texts; and reviews to illustrate contemporary reactions to Moore’s writings.

It will be invaluable to scholars of English literature, Victorian and turn-of-the-century studies, Irish Studies and Gender Studies.

• Full editorial apparatus including preface, general introduction, volume introductions, bibliography, annotation to the texts, and consolidated index
• Includes textual variants between all lifetime editions and contemporary reviews
• A Story-Teller’s Holiday includes extracts from letters between Moore and his friends

Contents

Volume 1: Celibates (18985)

General Introduction; Volume Introduction, George Moore, Celibates (1895); Textual Variants; Annotated page proofs of Celibates
Contemporary reception
[G B Shaw], 'Mr George Moore's New Novel', Pall Mall Gazette (1887); George Moore, 'Letter to the Editor'. Pall Mall Gazette (1887); Letter from George Moore to George Bernard Shaw; ‘Novels of the Week’, Athenaeum (1887) (excerpt); ‘Novels and Stories’, Saturday Review (1887) (excerpt); Harry Thurston Peck, ‘The Rise of Mr. George Moore’, Bookman (1895); Barbara [Arnold Bennett], ‘Book Chat’, Woman (1895); ‘Recent Fiction: ‘Celibates’’, Critic (1895); ‘Celibates’, Bookman (1895); ‘Short Stories: Celibates’, Athenaeum (1895); W[illiam] D[ean] Howells, [From] ‘Life and Letters’, Harper’s Weekly (1895); Frank Danby [Julia Frankau], ‘Mr. George Moore’s New Novel’, Saturday Review (1895); George Moore, ‘Correspondence: Mr. George Moore’s New Novel. To the Editor of the Saturday Review’, Saturday Review (1895); Frank Danby [Julia Frankau], ‘Correspondence: ‘Celibates’ and Mr. George Moore. To the editor of the Saturday Review’, Saturday Review (1895); [A. Mary F. Robinson?] ‘Celibates’, The Literary World (1895); William Morton Payne, ‘Recent Fiction’, Dial (1895) (excerpt); Yellow Dwarf [Henry Harland], ‘Books’, Yellow Book (1895) (excerpt); ‘Book Reviews: Moore’s Celibates’, Overland Monthly (1896); Harry Thurston Peck, [From] ‘Mr. George Moore’s New Novel’, Bookman (1898); Max Meyerfeld, ‘Charakteristiken’, Das literarische Echo (1901) (excerpt); James Huneker, ‘Three Disagreeable Girls’, Forum (1914) (excerpt); Temple Scott, Introduction to George Moore, Celibates (1915); Susan L Mitchell, George Moore (1916) (excerpt); Stuart P Sherman, ‘The Aesthetic Naturalism of George Moore’, On Contemporary Literature (1917) (excerpt); John Freeman, A Portrait of George Moore in a Study of his Work (1922) (excerpt); ‘Mildred Lawson’, Lady’s Pictorial (1888) (excerpts); George Moore, A Mere Accident (1887) (excerpt); George Moore, ‘Balzac’, Impressions and Opinions (1891) (excerpt)

Celibates is a collection of three novella-length stories about sexual repression and 1890s hysteria. All three short stories haunted Moore’s subsequent writing, as testified by his desire to undertake continual revisions even in his collections of the 1920s (see volume 5).

Volume 2: Other Stories, 1882–1931

Volume Introduction; Other Short Stories, 1882-1931; ‘Under the Fan’, Tinsley’s Magazine (1882); ‘A Russian Husband’, in Augustus M. Moore (ed.), Walnuts and Wine: A Christmas Annual (1883); ‘Dried Fruit’, Court and Society Review (1885); ‘Two Men, A Railway Story’, Court and Society Review (1887); ‘A Strange Death’, Hawk (1889); ‘In Blue Silk and Brass’, Hawk (1890); ‘Mr. Philip Gower and Two Ladies’, Hawk (1890); ‘A Faithful Heart’, Speaker (1892); ‘Parted’, Daily Chronicle (1893); ‘An Episode in Bachelor Life’, Sketch (1894); ‘An Episode in Married Life’, Sketch (1894); ‘In Sight of Death’, Illustrated London News (1892); ‘A Flood’, Irish Review (1911); ‘At the Turn of the Road: An Irish Girl’s Love Story’, Hearst International – Cosmopolitan (1927); ‘The Strange Story of the Three Golden Fishes: A Comedy of a Man Who Always Was Lucky ? Especially in Marriage’, Nash’s Magazine (1927); The Talking Pine (1931); Textual Variants
Contemporary reception
Jacob Tonson [Arnold Bennett], ‘Books and Persons in London and Paris’, New Age (1911) (excerpt); Lawrence C Groom, ‘Mr. George Moore: An Interview’, New York Herald Tribune (1927); John Austin, ‘Hail, My Farewell! By George Moore (in an interview)’, T P’s Weekly (1927); George Moore, ‘Turgueneff’, Fortnightly Review (1888) (excerpt)

Volume 3: The Untilled Field (1931)

Volume Introduction; The Untilled Field (1931): ‘The Exile’; ‘Home Sickness’; ‘Some Parishioners’; ‘Patchwork’; ‘The Wedding Feast’; ‘The Window’; ‘A Letter to Rome’; ‘A Play-House in the Waste’; ‘Julia Cahill’s Curse’; ‘The Wedding Gown’; ‘The Clerk’s Quest’; ‘Alms-Giving’; ‘So On He Fares’; ‘The Wild Goose’; ‘Fugitives’ ; Textual Variants; Annotated page proofs of selected stories (1903); Annotated page proofs of The Untilled Field (1903)
Contemporary reception
‘Mr. George Moore Done Into Irish’, Academy (1902); ‘The Exiles of Erin’, Daily Chronicle (1903); ‘Mr. Moore’s Ireland’, Academy and Literature (1903); ‘The Untilled Field’, Independent (1903); James E Routh, Jr., ‘Notes of a Novel Reader’, Critic (1903); Robert Yelverton Tyrrell, ‘Mr. George Moore and Ireland’s Vocation’, Macmillan’s (1903); ‘George Moore: A Collection of Stories Dealing with the Present Condition of Ireland’, New York Times Saturday Review of Books and Art (1903); ‘Grandmother’s Wedding Gown’, The Lady’s Pictorial (1887); ‘Charity’, The Sketch (1893); ‘Charity’, The Speaker (1895); ‘Love of Country’, Weekly Freeman (1902); .‘The Golden Apples’, The English Illustrated Magazine (1902); ‘The Wedding Gown’, The English Illustrated Magazine (1902); ‘In the Clay’, The Untilled Field (1903); ‘Julia Cahill’s Curse’, The Untilled Field (1903); ‘The Wild Goose’, The Untilled Field (1903); ‘The Way Back’, The Untilled Field (1903); ‘Preface’, The Untilled Field (1914); ‘The Wild Goose’, The Untilled Field (1914); [‘Author’s Note’], The Untilled Field (1926); ‘Publisher’s Note' (1931)

Moore’s collection The Untilled Field, which was originally published in 1903, holds an important place in the history of the twentieth-century Irish short story and was heavily influenced by his experience and exposure to continental developments and innovations in writing technique. The interconnected narratives of rural Ireland deal with the themes of homeland, escape, exile, idealism, disappointment and disaffection.

Volume 4: A Story-Teller’s Holiday (1928)

Volume Introduction; A Story-Teller’s Holiday (1928): A Leave-Taking [from the first edition, Cumann Sean-eolais na h-Eireann, 1918]; Preface by Ernest Longworth; A train journey to Ireland: The question of Home Rule (Chapters I–II); The aftermath of the Easter Rising and the homeless cats of Dublin (Chapters III–IV); A train journey in Ireland: Memory, mythology, reverie, and reality (Chapters V–VI); Joseph Appley (Chapter VII); Cunningham and his priest (Chapters VIII–X); In extremis: The bee in the railway carriage and the nun at the railway station (Chapter XI); Westport and Stevenson’s travelogue (Chapters XII–XV); Alec Trusselby and the story of the Murrigan (Chapter XVI); Liadin and Curithir (Chapters XVII–XVIII); The nuns of Crith Gaille (Chapters XVIII–XXIII); Father Scothine and Father Brenainn (Chapters XXIV–XXVI); Moling and Sister Ligach (Chapters XXVII–XXXI); Finding the ‘right’ story (Chapter XXXII); The Garden of Eden (Chapters XXXIII–XLIII); Ulick and Soracha (Chapters XLIV–LVII); Dinoll and Crede (Chapter LVIII); Dostoevsky and Turgenev (Chapter LIX); A final leave-taking from Ireland (Chapters LX–LXVI); Textual Variants.
Contemporary Reception
Edward Moore (Edwin Muir), We Moderns: Enigmas and Guesses (1918) (excerpt); James Gibbons Huneker, ‘Ten Books for the Month: George Moore as Folklorist’, Bookman (1918); J S Watson, Jr, ‘A Story-Teller’s Holiday’, Dial (1918); Benjamin de Casseres, ‘George Moore’s Uncensored New Book’, Sun (1919); ‘New Novels: Ulick and Soracha’, Daily Telegraph (1926); Arnold Palmer, ‘Mr. George Moore’s Latin Mind’, Sphere (1926); ‘Ulick and Soracha’, Times Literary Supplement (1926); ‘Fiction’, Nation and Athenaeum (1926); John Freeman, ‘The Tale of Ulick and Soracha’, Bookman (1926); Richard Church, ‘A Facsimile of the Old Masters’, Spectator (1926); Herbert L. Matthews, ‘George Moore Spins a Tale of Ireland Long Ago’, New York Times Book Review (1926); John Eglinton [William K. Magee], ‘Mr. George Moore as a Shanachie’, Dial (1926); Theodore Purdy, Jr., ‘An Irish Legend’, Saturday Review of Literature (1926); Gerald Gould, [From] ‘Mr. Moore and Others’, Observer (1928); ‘New Novels’, Times (1928); Richard Church, ‘Merlin and Vivien’, Spectator (1928); ‘A Story-Teller’s Holiday’, Times Literary Supplement (1928); Affable Hawk [Desmond MacCarthy], ‘Current Literature: Books in General’, New Statesman (1929); John Freeman, ‘A Story-Teller’s Holiday’, Bookman (1929); John Eglinton [William K. Magee], ‘George Moore and Holy Ireland’, Dial (1929); Gerald Bullett, ‘George Moore: A Cloistered Genius’, John O’London Weekly (1933); Osbert Burdett ‘George Moore’, London Mercury (1933) (excerpt); Letters by George Moore to Arthur Brentano (1916–19); Salve (1912); ‘Dublin Revisited: The Homeless Cats Among the Ruins, by George Moore, the Distinguished Irish Novelist’, Evening News (1916); George Moore, ‘A June Trip Through Ireland: Ruin and Weed’, Evening News (1916); Extract from the first English edition of Ulick and Soracha (1926)

A Story-Teller’s Holiday (originally published privately for subscribers in 1918) contains a series of stories of sex and sinfulness in a medieval Ireland populated by monks and nuns, in conjunction with European-influenced contemporary narratives of sexual frustration and gender confusion, inspired in part by the German scholar Kuno Meyer. Tinged with sadness but also undeniable humour, A Story-Teller’s Holiday draws together the diverse range of Moore’s interests and provides a good connecting text between the ‘celibate lives’ of volumes 1 and 5 and the Irish dimension of Moore’s work found in volume 3.

Volume 5: In Single Strictness (1922) and other stories (1902 and 1927)

Volume Introduction; In Single Strictness (1922): ‘Advertisement’; ‘Wilfrid Holmes’; ‘Priscilla and Emily Lofft’; ‘Hugh Monfert’; ‘Henrietta Marr’; ‘Sarah Gwynn’; Other Stories: ‘Emma Bovary’, Lippincott’s Magazine (1902); ‘Albert Nobbs’, Celibate Lives (1927); Textual Variants

Contemporary reception
‘'Single' or 'Strict': George Moore’s Puzzle in New Bachelor Book’, Weekly Dispatch (1921); ‘From the Library Chair’, Londoner (1922); ‘Mr. George Moore’s new volumes of stories’, The Times (1922); ‘More Celibates: Mr. George Moore’s New Work’, The Times (1922); Alec Waugh, ‘George Moore Again Reconsiders’, John O’London’s Weekly (1922); Edmund Gosse, ‘The World of Books: Mr Moore Among the Celibates’, Sunday Times (1922); Llewellyn Jones, ‘George Moore: Five Stories and an Autograph’, Chicago Evening Post (1922); ‘Fiction: In Single Strictness’, Spectator (1922); T Earle Welby, ‘The Later Mr. Moore’, Saturday Review (1927); Anthony Bertram, ‘Celibate Lives’, Country Life (1927); Y O, ‘Celibate Lives’, Irish Statesman (1927); Humbert Wolfe, ‘Celibate Lives’, Observer (1927); ‘Celibate Lives’, Daily Telegraph (1927); Beverley Nichols, ‘The Literary Lounger’, Sketch (1927); E MacC., ‘Celibate Lives. By George Moore’, Dublin Magazine (1927); Clyde Beck, ‘They Who Live Alone’, Detroit News (1927); R L Duffus, ‘In Celibate Lives a Study of Inadequate Living’, New York Times Book Review (1927); ‘Celibate Lives’, Indianapolis News (1927); ‘Celibate Lives’, New York Evening Post (1927); Ben Ray Redman, ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’, New York Herald-Tribune Books (1927); ‘Celibate Lives’, Boston Evening Transcript (1927); Walter Benjamin, ‘George Moore: Albert and Hubert, Deutsch von M. Meyerfield’, Die Literarische Welt (1928); Conrad Aiken, ‘George Moore (1927)’, A Reviewer’s ABC (1958); Alternative ending to ‘Hugh Monfert’ from In Single Strictness, Cara edition (1923); ‘Advertisement’, Celibate Lives (1927)

This volume returns to the theme of sexual repression in Moore’s work. Reproducing the 1922 edition of In Single Strictness reveals how Moore changed the text when he published Celibate Lives in 1927.

ARTICLES, CHAPTERS

2004

Annette Federico, 'Irony, Ethics and Self-Fashioning in George Moore's Confessions of a Young Man' in Marysa Deemor (ed. and introd.), Marketing the Author: Authorial Personae, Narrative Selves and Self-Fashioning, 1880-1930 (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp.96-113

Ann Heilmann and Mark Llewellyn, ‘What Kitty Knew: George Moore’s John Norton, Multiple Personality and the Psychopathology of Late-Victorian Sex Crime’, Nineteenth Century Literature, 59:3, 2004, pp.372-403

2005

Troy J. Bassett, 'Circulating Morals: George Moore's Attack on Late-Victorian Literary Censorship', Pacific Coast Philology, 40:2, 2005, pp.73-89 <br /> <br />

Brendan Fleming, (introd.), 'Mrs. Gardiner: A Comedy in One Act (1888): A Play by George Moore', English Literature in Transition, 48:3, 2005, pp.259-84

Mark Llewellyn, “Masculinity, Materialism and the Introjected Self in George Moore’s Mike Fletcher: “I’m weary of playing at Faust”’, English Literature in Transition, 48:2, January 2005, pp.131-146

Richard Rankin Russell, 'Escaping the Examined Life in George Moore's "Home Sickness"', Journal of the Short Story in English, 45, Autumn 2005, pp.29-45 (Includes French summary)

2006

Mary S. Pierse, 'Paris as 'Other': George Moore, Kate Chopin and French Literary Escape Routes', ABEI Journal: The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies, 8, June 2006, pp.79-87

2007

Mark Llewellyn, ‘Pagan Moore: Poetry, Painting and Passive Masculinity in George Moore’s Flowers of Passion (1877) and Pagan Poems (1881)’, Victorian Poetry, 45:1, 2007, pp.77-92

Mark Llewellyn and Ann Heilmann, ‘George Moore and Literary Censorship: The Textual and Sexual History of “John Norton” and “Hugh Monfert”’, English Literature in Transition, 50: 3 (forthcoming, page numbers not yet known).

CONFERENCE PAPERS

For details on the papers delivered at the 2007 George Moore conference, see 'Conference Review' page.

Other George Moore papers in 2007
[I would be pleased to hear from any of those delivering papers on Moore and will be happy to include copies of abstracts on this site.]

George Moore panel at the British Association for Victorian Studies 8th Annual Conference, University of Salford, August 30-September 1st

Saturday 1st September
11.45-1.00pm

GEORGE MOORE (Chair: Mark Llewellyn)

Ann Heilmann (University of Hull), “‘The object of the new art criticism is to give free trade to art’: Art, Criticism, and Literature in George Moore’s Modern Painting (1893)”

Michele Russo (University of Pescara, Italy), “Dress and Identity in George Moore’s A Drama in Muslin and the ‘Marriage Mart’”

Martin Stoddard (Institute of English Studies, University of London), “George Moore and the Appropriation of Wagner to Literature”