Life
1904-1996; [Mary Nesta Keane, née Skrine; pseud. M. J. Farrell,
1928-1961], b. Kildare, dg. of Walter Skrine and ‘Moira O’Neill’;
published The Knight of Cheerful Countenance (1926), written at
17, to supplement dress allowance; her earlier novels published under
the pseudonym of M. J. Farrell, adopted from pub-name spotted driving
home, in order to ‘hide [her] literary side from my sporting friends’,
were Young Entry (1928); Taking Chances (1929); Mad Puppetstown
(1931); Conversation Piece (1932); Devoted Ladies (1934);
Full House (1935); The Rising Tide (1937); Two Days in
Aragon (1941); Loving Without Tears (1951); also plays with
John Perry, Spring Meeting (1938), produced by Gielgud [var. 1930];
Treasure Hunt (1952); and Dazzling Prospect (1961); m.
Robert (‘Bobby’) Lumley Keane, gentleman farmer Co.Waterford,
1938, living in a Georgian
house with a double staircase in the Blackwater Valley; plays produced
in London, New York and Dublin; her last play Dazzling Prospects,
was attacked by new realists and failed at the box-office; her husband
died aet. 36; resumed writing after some interval; Good Behaviour
(1981) shortlisted for the Booker Prize; fnd. member of Aosdana, 1981;
Time After Time (1983), filmed for television; Loving and Giving
(1988); also Nursery Cooking (1985), a cookery book; issued
Irish travel book with her daughter, Sally Phipps; another dg., Virginia
Brownlow; her literary agent was Gina Pollinger; d. peacefully at home,
22 April; pen-name taken from a public house sign, writing being considered
not the right thing for a member of her family and class. IF DIW FDA
OCIL
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Works
Plays [as M. J. Farrell], with John Perry, Spring Meeting
[Gielgud Productions 1938] (London: Collins 1938); Ducks and Drakes
(London: Collins 1952); with Perry, Treasure Hunt (London:
Collins 1952); with Perry, Dazzling Prospect (London: Samuel French
1961).
Fiction [as M. J. Farrell], The Knight of Cheerful Countenance (London: Mills & Boon 1926); Young Entry (London: Mathews & Marrot 1928; NY: H. Holt [1929]); Taking Chances (London: Mathews & Marrot 1929; Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott 1930), & Do., rep. (Virago 1987; 1998); Mad Puppetstown (London: Collins [1931]; NY: Farrar & Rinehart [1932]) [var 1934]; Conversation Piece (London: Collins 1932); Devoted Ladies (London: Collins; Boston: Little, Brown [1934]; rep. London: Virago 1984); Full House (London: Collins; Boston: Little, Brown, 1935); The Rising Tide (London: Collins 1937; NY: Macmillan 1938; rep. London: Virago 1984); Two Days in Aragon (London: Collins 1941); Loving Without Tears (London: Collins 1951), issued in America as The Enchanting Witch (NY: Crowell [1951]); Treasure Hunt (London: Collins 1951), based on the play; [As Molly Keane:] Good Behaviour (London: André Deutsch 1981); Time after Time (London: André Deutsch 1983; NY: Knopf 1984); Loving and Giving (London: André Deutsch 1988), rep. As Queen Lear (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1988; NY: Dutton 1989).
Miscellaneous, with Snaffles, Red Letter Days (London: Collins [1933]), issued in America as Point-to-Point (NY: Farrar & Rinehart [1933]), revised rep. with new introduction by Keane (London: André Deutsch 1987); Molly Keane’s Nursery Cookbook (1985); with Sally Phibbs [her dg.], Molly Keane’s Ireland: An Anthology (London: HarperCollins 1993), 288pp. Audiocassette of Good Behaviour and Time After Time, abridged, from Reed Audio, 1996. Reprints, Treasure Hunt and Young Entry (Virago 1996), 392pp. See also autograph chapter in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, ed. John Quinn [RTE copyright 1985] (1986; Mandarin 1990), pp.63-78.
Reprints, Good Behaviour, introduced by Marion Keyes (London: Virago Press 2001), 245pp.; Loving And Giving, introduced by Michele Roberts (London: Virago Press 2001), 233pp.
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Criticism
Sean O’Faolain, review of Full House in The Spectator
(Aug. 23 1935).
Bridget O’Toole, ‘Three Writers of the Big House, Elizabeth Bown, Molly Keane, and Jennifer Johnston’, in Gerald Dawe and Edna Longley, eds., Across the Roaring Hill, The Protestant Imagination in Modern Ireland (Belfast: Blackstaff 1985), pp.124-38.
Vera Kreilcamp, ‘The Persistent Pattern: Molly Keane’s Recent Big House Fiction’, in Massachusetts Review, 28 (Autumn 1987), pp.453-60.
James M. Cahalan, The Irish Novel: A Critical History (Boston: Twayne 1988).
E. Dermott, Study of the Big House Novel [Keane, Bowen, Farrell, and Johnson] (MA Thesis UUC 1989).
Alice Adams, ‘Coming Apart at the Seams: Good Behaviour as an AntiComedy of Manners’, in Journal of Irish Literature, 20 (Sept. 1991), pp.27-35.
Rüdiger Imhof, ‘Molly Keane: Good Behaviour, Time After Time, and Loving and Giving’, in Ancestral Voices: the Big House in Anglo-Irish Literature (Hildesheim: Georg Olms 1992), pp.195-203.
Shusha Guppy, Looking Back, A Panoramic View of a literary Age by the Grandes Dames of European Letters (NY: Brit-Am. Publ. 1992), 308pp. [infra].
Katherine Lilly Gibbs, An Introduction to the fiction of Molly Keane [M. J. Farrell] (Diss., Nebraska, 1993).
Rachel Jane Lynch, ‘Molly Keane’s Comedies of Anglo-Irish Manners’, in Theresa O’Connor, ed., The Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers (Florida UP 1996), pp.73-98.
Ruth Frehner, The Colonizers' Daughters: Gender In The Anglo-Irish Big House Novel (Tubingen: Franacke 1999), 256pp.
Clare Boylan, ‘Molly Keane’, obituary, Irish Times [q.d.; infra].
Colm Keenan, ‘Novelist Molly Keane dies at 92’, Irish Times [q.d., published with obituary; infra].
Mary Breen, ‘Piggies and Spoilers of Girls: The Representation of Sexuality in the Novels of Molly Keane’, in Éibhear Walshe, ed., Sex, Nation and Dissent in Irish Writing (Cork UP 1997), pp.202-20.
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Notes
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. II] (Cork: Royal
Carbery 1985); lists The Knight of Cheerful Countenance (1926),
Young Entry (1928), Taking Chances (1930), Mad Puppetstown
(1934), Conversation Piece (1937), Devoted Ladies (1934),
Full House (1937), The Rising Tide (1937), Two Days in Aragon
(1941), Loving Without Tears (1981), and Treasure Hunt
(1952). Bibl. dates from Aosdana. Also Good Behaviour (1981); Time
after Time (1983); , and Molly Keane’s Nursery Cookbook
(1985). ALSO A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, ed. John
Quinn [RTE copyright 1985] (1986; Mandarin 1990), pp.63-78. Pseud.
Mrs Robert Keane; The Knight of the Cheerful Countenance (Mills&Boon
1926), 254pp [sporting novel, Leinster, c.1923; Englishman in Ireland,
Ballinrath House, daughters, and romance]; Young Entry (Elkin Mathews
& Marrot [sic] 1928), 320pp [Irish country life, strictly Anglo-Irish;
heroine Prudence physically fearless]; Taking Chances (Mathews&Marrot
1929), 272pp. [Maeve, dg. Sir Ralph Sorrier about to marry Maj. Rowland
Arthur Fountain of Castle Fountain, Co Roscommon [‘Westcommon’];
Mary Fuller, her bridesmaid, encourages young men]; Mad Puppetstown
(Collins 1931), 288pp. [Easter Chevington and her twin cousins in Irish
mansion, World War I; Major Chevington killed in France in 1916; house
in delapidation when cousins return]; Conversation Piece (Collins
1932), 280pp [Oliver visits Pullinstown, Co. Roscommon [?’Westcommon’],
home of Sir Richard Pulleyn and two children Willow and Dick; horseflesh];
Devoted Ladies (Collins 1934), 286pp. [smart set in Ireland, 2930s]; Full
House (Collins 1935) [big house chars. ‘mentally unbalanced and
uncouth’, acc. Clarke]; The Rising Tide (Collins 1937), 320pp.
[French-McGraths; escape of daughters from ruthless domination of mother,
Cynthia, and English sister-in-law]; Two Days in Aragon (Collins
1941), 256pp. [Aragon is a big house of the Fox family; British officers
captured by IRA and released by outwitting Foxes, and more; well described];
Loving Without Tears (Collins 1950), [n.p.] [reviews quoted, presposterously
silly ... splendidly English; set in Ireland]; Treasure Hunt (1952),
256pp. [big house in decline, economies of Philip and cousin Veronica
Howard, with older generation, Aunt Consuelo and Uncle Hercules, and staff,
clinging to old ways]. See also Brian Cleeve & Anne Brady, A Dictionary
of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985),
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3: references restricted to apologies p. 937, ‘a selction of this fiction that, unfortunately, cannot spare room for Bryan MacMahon, Molly Keane, and John Broderick (among others) [and] clearly embarrassed by riches.’ (JW Foster).
Kevin Rockett, et al., eds., Cinema & Ireland (1988), notes that a play by Molly Keane and John Perry was adapted as Spring Meeting, dir. Walter C. Mycroft, 1941, Britain (p.57); also, Treasure Hunt, 1952, a film taken from the play of M. J. Farrell and John Perry, was dir. by John Paddy Carstairs (p.113).
Helena Sheehan, Irish Television Drama: A Society and Its Stories (RTÉ 1987), lists (RTÉ), Good Behaviour [3 pts] (1983), adpt. by Hugh Leonard, dir. Bill Hays.
Booksellers, HYLAND (Cat. No. 214) lists , Taking Chances (1st ed. 1929). HIBERNIA (Cat. No. 19) lists Loving and Giving (London: Deutsch 1988).
Belfast Public Library holds Mad Puppetstown (1935); Rising Tide (1937); Taking Chances (1929); Two Days in Aragon (1941); Red Letter Days [1933]
Loving and Giving (London: Deutsch 1988) - An indexed list
of motifs: Big House [80]; loving and giving [97, (106,) 127, 165, 182,
183, 203, 212, 217]; preserved in the dignity of absolute uselessness
[104]; Maman followed her love gallantly [108]; love and its cold aftermath
[109]; who to love? [29]; nobody to love [109; 125]; terrible hazards
of loving [116]; reassuring love [117]; blunder in loving [126]; total
generosity [128]; integral to her loving [130]; love had failed [157];
readiness to give [?182]; great store of love unswent [210]; sterile return
ot her loving [183]; importance [147]; unimportance [157]; reasons for
loving [212]; encroaching love [212]; forgetfulness, remembrance, love
[210-12]; in thrall of that terrible wish to give and please but the revenge
life takes on those who give and please too much was far beyond her understanding
[217].
Big houses: Molly Keane described the big houses of Ireland as ‘houses built for parties’; see Clare Boylan, reviewing Herbert Ympa, Irish Georgian, (Thames & Hudson 1998), photo. ills., in an article by René Stoeltie article of that title in The Independent, Tuesday Review (12 June 1998), p.12.
John Perry, the Anglo-Irish co-author of Spring Meeting, was a partner of “Binkie” Beaumont, the theatrical impressario, and an Intelligence Officer in the Second World War, in which capacity he met Brian Inglis in Gibraltar. (See Inglis, Downstarts, London: Chatto & Windus 1990, p.131.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)