George Moore

Esther Waters (Dodo Press) George Moore

George Augustus Moore (1852-1933) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. His first book, a collection of poems called The Flowers of Passion, had appeared in 1878 and a second collection, Pagan Poems, followed in 1881. His first novel, A Modern Lover (1883), was banned in England because of its, for the times, explicit portrayal of the amorous pursuits of its hero. His next book, A Mummer's Wife (1885) is widely recognized as the first major novel in the realist style in the English language. Other realist novels by Moore from this period include Esther Waters (1894), the story of an unmarried housemaid who becomes pregnant and is abandoned by her footman lover, and A Drama in Muslin (1886), a satiric story of the marriage trade in Anglo-Irish society. His 1887 novel A Mere Accident is an attempt to merge his symbolist and realist influences. He also published a collection of short stories: Celibates (1895). In 1913, he traveled to Jerusalem to research background for his novel The Brook Kerith: A Syrian Story (1916).