"Extending to over 1300 pages Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Reader offers a comprehensive and pleasurable introduction to modern Irish literature in a single volume. The Reader contains over 400 pieces including letters, diaries, newspaper and journal articles, songs, poems, critical essays, literary profiles, entire plays and short stories as well as extracts from novels and other longer works. Texts which until now have been out of print or difficult to locate are made easily accessible once more." "Arranged chronologically by decade, from the 1890s to the 1990s, each decade is divided into two different types of writing: critical/documentary and imaginative writing, and is accompanied by a headnote which situates it thematically and chronologically. The Reader is also structured for thematic study by listing all the pieces included under a series of topic headings. The wide range of material encompasses writings of well-known figures in the Irish canon and neglected writers alike. This will appeal to the general reader, but also makes Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century ideal as a core text, providing a unique focus for detailed study in a single volume."--Jacket.