O’FAOLAIN, Sean. A Nest of Simple Folk. A novel (AUTHOR’S FIRST NOVEL SET IN RATHKEALE & CORK)

London: Jonathan Cape, 1933. First edition. Crown octavo. pp. 413. Original green cloth, spine lettered in green. Pictorial Art-Deco dust jacket with harp motif and the designer’s “AM” monogram; titlepage with Cape device; imprint leaf stating printing by J. & J. Gray, Edinburgh, paper by John Dickinson, and binding by A. W. Bain. A near fine clean, bright copy in rare near fine dust.
O’Faoláin’s first novel, following his debut story collection Midsummer Night Madness (1932). Set among provincial Catholic Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, it traces a family’s fortunes through education, emigration, politics and troubled faith, themes that would preoccupy O’Faoláin throughout his career. The book balances an affectionate social panorama with a sharp, modern critique of clericalism and respectable conformity, and foreshadows the searching cultural commentary he later advanced in The Bell. The two main characters are Leo Donnell, a wild imaginative Celt, a Fenian, a rebel, a gun-runner; and his opposite Johnnie Hussey, a tough, hard-working peasant.

[CAT 162]