O’FLAHERTY, Liam. SIGNED LIMITED EDITION.  Red Barbara. And Other Stories.

The Mountain Tavern, Prey, The Oar. Illustrated by Cecil Salkeld. New York: Crosby Gaige, 1928. Medium octavo. First edition. pp. [viii], 50. Quarter maroon cloth on matching paper boards. Edition limited to 600 copies only, signed by the author. Minor wear to extremities. A very good copy. Scarce.  [L4 9E]

Liam O’Flaherty (1897-1984), novelist, was born in Gort na gCapall on Inishmore in the Aran Islands. His father was active in the Land League and his mother was descended from a family of Plymouth Brethren from County Antrim who had come to Aran to build lighthouses. Educated at Rockwell, Blackrock, and U.C.D. He abandoned his priestly studies and joined the Irish Guards as Bill Ganly, using his mother’s maiden name and served for a while in France during the First World War. He was invalided out and eventually returned to Dublin to take part in the Revolution. Afterwards he returned to London and began his writing career.  In spite of the large number of novels and the immense and deserved success of some of them, particularly ‘The Informer’, O’Flaherty is best known as a short-story writer. O’Flaherty separated from his wife and daughter and suffered a number of nervous breakdowns due to his experiences in the trenches.