An unprecedented gathering of the correspondence of one of the great writers of the twentieth century, The collected letters of Flann O'Brien presents an intimate look into the life and thought of Brian O'Nolan, a prolific author of novels, stories, sketches, and journalism who famously wrote and presented works to the reading public under a variety of pseudonyms. Spanning the years 1934 to 1966, these compulsively readable letters show us O'Nolan, or O'Brien, or Myles na gCopaleen, or whatever his name may be, at his most cantankerous and unrestrained. -- Publisher description.

A “wild, hilarious, fast moving, irreverent and comic” novel of growing up in turn-of-the-century Dublin from the acclaimed Irish author (New York Herald Tribune). When Finbarr’s mother dies, he and his older brother Manus are sent to their half-uncle’s house in Dublin. There, he is introduced to school—and the leather strap—at a benevolent Christian Brothers establishment. Evenings are spent listening to his uncle’s whisky-fueled discussions with a Jesuit priest, arguing the finer points of Roman Catholic theology and local politics. Finbarr follows Manus’s enterprising exploits—which include foregoing formal education to concoct money-making cons that prey on the gullible. As his uncle embarks on an ill-fated pilgrimage to Rome (where he is told to go to hell by the Holy Father himself), it remains to be seen if the life lessons Finbarr has absorbed set him on a path to righteousness and gainful employment . . . “A comic Irish novel that derives its effect from an absolutely deadpan approach, for the narrator is a small boy who, for the better part of the time, has only the foggiest notion of what he is describing. Young Finbarr commands a glorious version of the English language combined with a totally impartial view of adult actions. The two things produce remarkable results.” —The Atlantic “The conversation is a delight . . . and the atmosphere of a lower-middle-class family, with its cheerless, shabby, restricted way of life, is well done.” —Library Journal

The “brilliant, morosely inventive comic turns devoted to . . . the literary life, the Gaelic Revival, civil service bureaucracy, booze and its discontents.” —The Observer For more than twenty years, famous Irish novelist Flann O’Brien wrote columns for the Irish Times under the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen. This collection compiles his work from the first five years of his journalistic career and brings together themes that shaped O’Brien’s successful novels, including At Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman, The Poor Mouth, and The Hard Life. In these pages, you’ll find trenchant and entertaining writing on the Irish Writers, Actors, Artists and Musicians Association; World War II; John Keats; Irish culture and identity; brothers; landladies; railway service; decaying infrastructure; alcoholic ice cream advocacy; and a myriad of other subjects that—as a whole—give a valuable and authentic portrait of twentieth-century Irish life. “This is humorous, satirical, learned, grave-faced, crazy writing. . . . Myles was feared as were some of the ancient Gaelic poets, who it was said could kill with a satire. There was no malice in him, but he could set the town laughing, and a pity for you if the laughter was at your expense.” —The New York Times “It is good to have these fugitive pieces restrained within the covers of a book. Myles was a genial man, a wag, a humorist. . . . Read one by one, his fragments were very funny, but here is a particular pleasure in the continuity of feeling and idiom provided by a book.” —The Times Literary Supplement

With the publication of The Third Policeman, Dalkey Archive Press now has all of O'Brien's fiction back in print.

One man wants to publish, so another must perish, in this darkly witty philosophical novel by “a spectacularly gifted comic writer” (Newsweek). The Third Policeman follows a narrator who is obsessed with the work of a scientist and philosopher named de Selby (who believes that Earth is not round but sausage-shaped)—and has finally completed what he believes is the definitive text on the subject. But, broke and desperate for money to get his scholarly masterpiece published, he winds up committing robbery—and murder. From here, this remarkably imaginative dark comedy proceeds into a world of riddles, contradictions, and questions about the nature of eternity as our narrator meets some policemen with an obsession of their own (specifically, bicycles), and engages in an extended conversation with his dead victim—and his own soul, which he nicknames Joe. By the celebrated Irish author praised by James Joyce as “a real writer, with the true comic spirit,” The Third Policeman is an incomparable work of fiction. “’Tis the odd joke of modern Irish literature—of the three novelists in its holy trinity, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Flann O’Brien, the easiest and most accessible of the lot is O’Brien. . . . Flann O’Brien was too much his own man, Ireland’s man, to speak in any but his own tongue.” —The Washington Post

"Pulitzer Prize-winning author of plays such as True West, Fool For Love, and Buried Child, and Academy Award-nominated actor in many films, including The Right Stuff, Sam Shepard is arguably America's finest working dramatist. He has said many times that he will never write a memoir. But he has written intensively about his inner life and creative work to his former father-in-law and housemate, Johnny Dark. This book gathers nearly 40 years of their correspondence, which provides the most honest and complete record of Shepard's professional and personal lives that he is ever likely to publish. The book is illustrated with Dark's candid, revealing photographs of Shepard and their mutual family across many years, as well as facsimiles of numerous letters.It makes a perfect companion to Treva Wurmfeld's recent film, Shepard & Dark"--

A comic look at Irish life. The narrator is Finbarr, an orphan raised amid the odor of good whisky and bad cooking. With a mixture of admiration and unease he watches his brother, Manus, turn into a young man of business, successful enough to move to England.