O’BRIEN, Kate. Distinguished Villa. A play in three acts (Author’s first appearance in print)

London: Benn Limited, 1926. First edition. Crown octavo. pp. 89. Printed yellow wrappers. A very good copy. Very rare.
JISC locates only 6 copies.
Kate O’Brien was born in Limerick to a middle-class, Catholic family with a Cromwellian ancestor in 1897. She was educated at Laurel Hill Convent and later University College Dublin. In the years that followed she worked as a governess in Spain and a journalist on The Manchester Guardian. While in Manchester she wrote her first literary work a play, Distinguished Villa. Its success enabled her to begin work as a novelist and Without My Cloak was accepted by her publisher on the strength of the first few chapters. It became a best-seller and was awarded the Hawthornden Prize.

[CAT 164]