O’SULLIVAN, Maurice. Twenty Years A-Growing

Rendered from the original Irish with a preface by Moya Llewelyn Davies and George Thomson. With an Introductory Note by E.M. Forster. With maps of the Dingle Peninsula and Blasket Islands on endpapers. London: Chatto, 1933. First edition. Demy octavo. pp. xii, 324. Green cloth, titled in gilt. Previous owner’s inscription on verso of front endpaper. Top edge green. A fine copy in pictorial, but, lightly frayed dust jacket.
Maurice O’Sullivan was born and reared on the Blasket Islands, off the Kerry coast, and in this book he
tells the story of his childhood. Many of the folktales he learned at the fireside from his grandfather. In
the preface to the original Irish edition he wrote: “It was a tender thought that struck me to write this
book for the entertainment and laughter of the old women of the Blasket Island, who showed me great
love and affection when I used to call on them during the long winter nights. And so, remembering
their sorrow when I left them, I took up my pen and wrote this book in order to send my voice into their
ears again, the voice that always roused them”. Copies in dust wrapper are exceedingly rare.