Mary Lavin

Life
1912-1996; novelist; b. 11 June, East Walpole, Massechusetts, USA, dg. of Irish parents, her mother being from a middle-class and puritanical family in Athenry, Co. Galway; brought to Ireland at 10 [vars. 9 and 11] and lived at Athenry; family moved to Dublin, 1922; ed. Loreto Convent, St. Stephen’s Green, and UCD, MA on Jane Austen in 1937; friendly in college with Michael (‘Mick’) McDonald Scott, a Jesuit novitiate who went to Australia on the proviso from his Superior that he could write to her; commenced PhD on Virginia Woolf; wrote ‘Miss Holland’ on the verso of her PhD thesis on Virginia Woolf, to be printed in Dublin Magazine No. 14 (April-June 1939); two poems which appeared in the October issue elicited Seamus O’Sullivan’s special praise and an invitation to enter them in in a poetry competition adjudicated by Austin Clarke, which she refused; (‘Let me Come Inland Always’, and ‘Poem’); first collection, Tales from Bective Bridge, foreword by Dunsany (1942), who had previously written her eight letters of encouragement; m. William Walsh, lawyer, with whom she had three daughters; wrote two novels, The House in Clew Street (1945), first issued in Atlantic Monthly as Gabriel Galloway (Vol. 174, Nov.-Dec. 1944, & Vol. 175, Jan.-May 1945); and Mary O’Grady (1950); widowed, 1954; bought Abbey Farm, beside ruined Bective Abbey, a Cistercian foundation, Co. Meath, which she farmed (calling herself a ‘one-armed writer’); entertained Irish writers such as Brian Friel and Tom Kilroy, whom she introduced to one another; secured story-writing with New Yorker; published Selected Stories (1959); issued In the Middle of the Fields (1961), stories of widowhood; m. Michael Scott, then Dean of School of Irish Studies (UCD), 1969, who had left the Jesuits, and predecessed her; death of her mother, 1969; published by Michael Joseph up to 1956, and thereafter with Macmillan, Longman, and Constable; collected works issued as The Stories of Mary Lavin (1964, 1974, 1985); James Tait Memorial Prize, 1943; Guggenheim Fellowships in 1959 and 1961; The Great Wave and Other Stories (1961), winner of Katherine Mansfield Prize; UCD Hon. D.Litt., 1968; ‘A Family Likeness’, her last published story, appeared in Irish University Review (1979); President of MIAL, 1972-74; visited Boston, 1979; and was scheduled to read with Elizabeth Bishop at Sanders Memorial Hall, Harvard when the latter died at night; elected Saoi of Aosdána, 1992; d. 25 March, Newtownpark Nursing Home, Blackrock; An Arrow in Flight, a tribute to Mary Lavin at 80, was broadcast by RTÉ in May 1991; there is a head by Margorie Fitzgibbon in the RDS; an obituary by Maurice Harmon appeared in The Irish Times (26 March 1996). IF2 DIW DIL KUN FDA OCIL

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Works
Short story collections, Tales from Bective Bridge, foreword by Dunsany (London: Michael Joseph 1942; Boston: Little, Brown 1943; Readers’ Union/Michael Joseph 1945); Do., rep. (Dublin: Poolbeg 1978; Town House [Gill & Macmillan] 1996), 256pp. [infra]; The Long Ago and Other Stories (London: Michael Joseph 1944); The Becker Wives and Other Stories (London: Michael Joseph 1946), 223pp.; The Becker Wives sep. as a novel, 1971; At Sallygap and Other Stories (London: Michael Joseph; Boston: Little Brown 1947); A Single Lady and Other Stories (London: Michael Joseph 1951) [Aosdana err. 1956]; The Patriot Son and Other Stories (London: Michael Joseph 1956); The Great Wave and Other Stories (London & NY: Macmillan 1961); Selected Stories of Mary Lavin ((NY: Macmillan 1959); Selected Stories (NY: Macmillan 1959) [infra]; Collected Stories (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1971) In the Middle of the Fields (London: Constable 1967); also in Louise de Salvo, et al., eds., Territories of the Voice: Contemporary Stories by Irish Women (Boston: Beacon 1989), pp.1-16; Happiness and Other Stories (London: Constable 1969); The Second Best Children in the World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1972); A Memory and Other Stories (1972); The Shrine and Other Stories (London: Constable 1977); A Family Likeness and Other Stories (London: Constable 1985); In a Café, into. Thomas Kilroy (Dublin: Town House 1995), 350pp. [includes ‘In the Middle of the Fields’, and also a story by her dg. Elizabeth Walsh].

Collected editions, The Stories of Mary Lavin, Vol. 1 (London: Longman 1972); The Stories of Mary Lavin, Vol. 2 (London: Constable 1974); The Stories of Mary Lavin, Vol. 3 (London: Constable 1985).

Novels, The House in Clewe Street (London: Michael Joseph [Book Production War Economy Standard, 460pp.]; Boston: Little, Brown 1946; Harmondsworth: Penguin 1949; Bath: Chivers 1973), Do., rep., with afterword by Augustine Martin [Virago Modern Classics, No. 209] (NY: Virago Press 1987; London: Virago Press 1988); Mary O’Grady (London: Michael Joseph; Boston: Little, Brown 1950), Do., rep. with Afterword by Augustine Martin (London: Virago Press 1987).

Miscellaneous, ‘Let Me Come Inland Always’, with another poem, in Dublin Magazine, No. 15 (Jan.-March 1940), pp.1-2; ‘Some Curious People’, review of Brinsley MacNamara, The Valley of the Squinting Windows, in The Bell, 10 (Sept. 1945), pp.547-49; ‘The Fields will Never Leave You’ (essay), in Country Beautiful, 2, 1 (Sept. 1962), pp.18-20; See also V. S. Pritchett, intro., Collected Stories; “A House to Let” [story], in Ploughshares (Spring 1976). Also, “The Construction of the Novel and Jane Austen” [MA NUI] (1936) 46pp. [held in NLI].

Reprints, Mary Lavin “The New Gardiner”, in The Cork Review, ‘Seán O Faoláin Special Number’, ed. Sean Dunne (1991), pp.60-62 [being the story that O’Faolain told her he liked best]; In the Café, selected by Elizabeth Walsh Peavoy, with a foreword by Tom Kilroy (Dublin: Town House 1994), pp.312.

Anthologies, Andrew Carpenter & Peter Fallon, eds., The Writers: A Sense of Place (Dublin: O’Brien Press 1980), incls. ‘A Walk on the Cliff’, a story, here pp.102-06; with photo-port.; Peter Fallon and Seán Golden, eds., Soft Day: A Miscellany of Contemporary Irish Writing (Dublin: Wolfhound; Indiana: Notre Dame 1980), selects "A Voice from the Dead".; Evelyn Conlon & Hans-Christian Oeser, eds., Cutting the Night in Two: Short Stories by Irish Women Writers (Dublin: New Island 2001) incls. work.

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Bibliographical details
Selected Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1981), Contents: ‘Lilacs’ [first publ. in Tales from Bective Bridge, 1942]; ‘The Long Ago’ [first publ. in The Long Ago and Other Stories, 1944]; ‘The Becker Wives’ [first pub. in The Becker Wives and Other Stories, 1946]; ‘A Single Lady’ [first publ. in A Single Lady and Other Stories, 1951]; ‘A Likely Story’ [first pub. in A Likely Story, 1957]; ‘The Patriot Son’ [first pub. in A Patriot Son and Other Stories, 1956; rep. in Georgia Review, No. 20, Fall 1966, pp.301-17]; ‘The Great Wave’ [first publ. in New Yorker, Vol. 35, 13 June 1959, p-p.28-37; rep. in The Great Wave and Other Stories, 1961]; ‘In the Middle of the Road’ [first publ. in New Yorker, Vo. 37, 3 June 1961; rep. in Kilkenny Magazine, Nos. 12-13, Spring 1965, pp.90-106; rep. in In the Middle of the Fields and Other Stories, 1967]; ‘Happiness’ [first publ, in New yorker, Vol. 44, 14 Dec. 1968; rep. in Happiness and Other Stories, 1969; reps. incl. Bodley Head Book of Irish Short Stories, 1980, and David Marcus, ed., Irish Short Stories, Sceptre 1992, pp.171-189]); ‘A Memory’ [first publ, in A Memory and Other Stories, 1972; rep. in Ben Forkner, A New Book of Dubliners, Minerva 1989, pp.158-202]; ‘The Shrine’. [Supplied by Sarah Briggs.] See also Augustine Martin, Bearing Witness: Essays on Anglo-Irish Literature (UCD Press 1996).

Tales from Bective Bridge, pref. Lord Dunsany [Readers’ Union] (London: Michael Joseph 1945), 171pp. CONTENTS: Pref.; ‘Lilacs’; ‘The Green Grave and the Black Grave’; ‘Sarah’; ‘Brother Boniface’; ‘At Sallygap’; ‘Love is for Lovers’; ‘Say, Could that Lad Be I?’; ‘A Fable’; ‘Miss Holland’; ‘The Dead Soldier’. [See Dunsany’s Preface under criticism.]

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Criticism
Lord Dunsany, pref. to Tales from Bective Bridge (Boston 1942) [infra].

Frank O’Connor, The Lonely Voice (1962).

Augustine Martin, ‘A Skeleton Key to the Stories of Mary Lavin’, Studies, 52 (Winter 1963) [q.pp.].

Robert W. Caswell, ‘Mary Lavin: Breaking a Pathway’, Dublin Magazine (Summer 1967), pp.32-44 [infra; followed by the story “A Sigh”].

Frank O’Connor, A Short History of Irish Literature (NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons 1967), p.229 [infra].

Robert W. Caswell, ‘Irish Political Reality and Mary Lavin's Tales From Bective Bridge’, Éire-Ireland, 3, 1 (Spring 1968), pp.48-60.

P. A. Doyle, ‘Mary Lavin, a Checklist’, The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 63 (1969), pp.317-21.

Benedict Kiely, ‘Green Island, Red South: Mary Lavin and Flannery O’Connor’, Kilkenny Magazine (Autumn/Winter 1970), rep. in A Raid into Dark Corners and Other Essays (Cork UP 1999), pp.259-74.

V. S. Pritchett, intro. to Lavin, Collected Stories (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1971), pp. ix-x.

Joyce Carol Oates, ‘Written as if by People from Different Planets’, New York Times Book Review (25 Nov. 1973), pp.7-14[?].

Zack Bowen, Mary Lavin [Irish Writers Series] (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1975).

Richard F. Peterson, Mary Lavin (NY: Twayne 1978); Irish University Review, ‘Mary Lavin Special Issue’, 9, 2 (Autumn 1979), [infra].

Catherine A. Murpy, ‘The Ironic Vision of Mary Lavin’, Mosaic, 12 (Spring 1979) [cp.69].

Janet Dunleavy, ‘The Making of Mary Lavin’s “Happiness”’, in Irish University Review (Autumn 1979), pp.225-31.

A. A. Kelly, Mary Lavin: Quiet Rebel (Dublin: Wolfhound 1980; Irish Amer Book Co. 1998), 200pp.

Alan Warner, ‘Mary Lavin’, in A Guide to Anglo-Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1981), pp.216-24.

‘Mary Lavin’, in D. L. Kirkpatrick, ed., Contemporary Novelists (London: St. James 1986).

Janet Egleson Dunleavy & Janet Egleton, ‘Contemporary Irish Women Novelists’, in James Acheson, ed., British and Irish Novels since 1960 (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1991), [q.p.].

Maurice Harmon, ‘Mary Lavin: Moralist of The Heart’, in Barbara Hayley & Christopher Murray, eds., Ireland and France - A Bountiful Friendship: Essays in Honour of Patrick Rafroidi (Gerrards Cross: Smythe 1992), pp.107-123.

Sarah Briggs, ‘Mary Lavin: Questions of Identity’, in Irish Studies Review, 15 (Summer 1996), pp.10-15 [infra].

Maurice Harmon, ‘Courageous Chronicler of the Vagaries of the Heart’, Irish Times (26 March 1996) [obituary].

Rachael Sealy Lynch, ‘“The Fabulous Female Form”: The Deadly Erotics of the Male Gaze in Mary Lavin’s The House in Clewe Street’, in Twentieth-century Literature, 43, 3 (1997), pp.326-38 [infra].

Maurice Harmon, ‘From Conversations with Mary Lavin’, in Irish University Review, 27, 2 (Autumn/Winter 1997), pp.287-92.

Leah Levenson, The Fours Seasons of Mary Lavin (Dublin: Marino Books 1998), 368pp.

Augustine Martin, ‘A Skeleton Key to the Stories of Mary Lavin', in Anthony Roche, ed., Bearing Witness: Essays on Anglo-Irish Literature by Augustine Martin (UCD Press 1996) [q.pp.]

Roger Garfitt, ‘Constants in Contemporary Irish Fiction’, in Douglas Dunn, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing (Manchester: Carcanet; Chester Springs: Dufour 1975), pp.207-42.

Patrick Rafroidi & Terence Brown, eds., The Irish Short Story (Gerrards Cross: Smythe 1979).

George O’Brien, ‘Irish Fiction Since 1966: Challenge, Themes, Promise’, in Plougshares (Spring 1980) [q.p.]

Irish University Review, ‘Mary Lavin Special Issue’, 9, 2 (Autumn 1979), CONTENTS: Catherine A. Murphy, ‘Mary Lavin: An Interview’ [207]; Janet Egleson Dunleavy, ‘The Making of Mary Lavin's "Happiness"’ [225]; Mary Lavin, "A Family Likeness" [story] [233]; Marianne Koenig, ‘Mary Lavin: The Novels and the Stories’ [244]; Bonnie Kime Scott, ‘Mary Lavin and the Life of the Mind’ [262]; Heinz Kosok, ‘Mary Lavin: A Bibliography’ [279-312].

Frank O'Connor, A Short History of Irish Literature (NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons 1967), p.229.

Dunleavy & Egleton, ‘Contemporary Irish Women Novelists’, in British and Irish Novels, ed. James Acheson (1991) [q.pp.].

Sarah Briggs, ‘Mary Lavin: Questions of Identity’, Irish Studies Review, No. 15 (Summer 1996), pp.10-15.

Ruth Krawschak, ‘Mary Lavin: A Check List 1939-1979 (Berlin: Erschienen im Selbstverlag 1979); Irish University Review ‘Special Issue’ (Autumn 1979); A. A. Kelly, Mary Lavin: Quiet Rebel (Wolfhound 1989), chaps. on Social Hierarchy, the Family and Intimate Relationships, Religious Conventions, Artistic Intentions, and The Significance of Textual Revisions; also cites obituary by William Trevor (Guardian, 26 March 1996, p.13);

Tom McIntyre (review of The Shrine and Other Stories, in Books Ireland, 16 Sept. 1977, pp.171-72).

W. J., McCormack (Independent, 26 March 1996, p.12), and an interview with Maeve Kennedy, Irish Times (13 March 1976).

Marianne Koenig, ‘Mary Lavin: The Novels and Stories’, Irish University Review, 9, 2 (Autumn 1979), pp.244-61.

Ann Owens Weekes, Irish Women Writers: An Uncharted Tradition (Kentucky UP 1990), pp.30-31.

Rachael Sealy Lynch, ‘“The Fabulous Female Form”: The Deadly Erotics of the Male Gaze in Mary Lavin’s The House in Clewe Street’, in Twentieth-century Literature, 43, 3 (1997).

Notes
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day CO. 1991), Vol. 2, selects from A Single Lady (1951), ‘A Visit to the Cemetery’ [1198-201];from In the Middle of the Fields, ‘In the Middle of the Fields’ [1201-08; 1024-45; 1222, WORKS [as supra], BIOG & COMM [as supra].

Helena Sheehan, Irish Television Drama: A Society and Its Stories (RTE 1987), lists TV film, The Cuckoo Spit, dir. Deirdre Friel (1974).

Southen Illinois University holds a collection of Mary Lavin Papers, consisting of 20 short stories in MSS incl. “The Pastor of Six Mile Bush” and “A Gentle Soul” (composed earlier than 1951) a draft of “Catharsis” from 1953 along with others written between 1958-1964, all published in The Great Wave and Other Stories (1961) and In the Middle of the Fields (1969) - lacking only five from the former and only “The Mock Auction” from the latter; also fragments and notes of essays on the short story and some letters exchanged with the editors of magazines. There are multiple versions of most of the stories in the collection, many in Lavin's hand, including fifteen to twenty drafts each of a number of stories and more than thirty drafts of “A Lucky Pair”, “The Cuckoo Spit” and “One Summer”. The collection documents Lavin’s lengthy composing process, showing how carefully each story is reworked before it is ready for publication. The more than forty drafts of "One Summer," for example, range from August 1962 to October 1965. Additional holdings include eight letters to and from Denys Val Baker, The New Yorkerand Lord Dunsany dating from 1963 to 1977 and holograph fragments of “The Cuckoo Spit” and Mary O'Grady. Also held here is an xerox copy her thesis “The Construction of the Novel and Jane Austen” (1936) [National University of Ireland]. See website page.

Belfast Public Library holds The House in Clew Street (1945) and six other titles.

Maurice Harmon, ‘Courageous Chronicler of the Vagaries of the Heart’, an obituary in the Irish Times (26 March 1996), departs from a title-phrase which was habitual with her in describing her own art.

Mary Lavin’s daughter Caroline Walsh was appointed Literary Editor of the Irish Times in succession to John Banville, and is married to James Ryan, novelist.

Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)