=MOORE, George.= A distinguished poet, novelist, dramatist, and art critic. Was born in Ireland, 1857, of a Catholic family of Co. Mayo, many of whose members were distinguished nationalists. He has produced some twenty books. Much of Mr. Moore’s education has been acquired in France, with the result that, as Dr. William Barry says, “he is excessively, provokingly un-English.” At the same time he has little but scorn for things Irish. He has, as he tells us in _Confessions of a Young Man_, abandoned the Catholic Church. He may be said to be at war with all prevailing types of religion and current codes of morality. His books bear abundant evidence of the fact. Many of them treat of most unsavoury topics, and that with naturalistic freedom and absence of reserve. They were consequently excluded from lending libraries such as Mudie’s and Smith’s. Many critics rank Mr. Moore very high as a psychologist and as a critic. An interesting article on him will be found in G. K. Chesterton’s _Heretics_. His non-Irish stories include _Evelyn Innes_, _Sister Theresa_, _Esther Waters_, _A Mummer’s Wife_, _Celibates_, _Vain Fortune_, _A Mere Accident_, &c. Within the last two or three years he has published at intervals three vols. of reminiscences entitled _Ave, Salve, Vale_, in which no privacies are respected and which in other respects resemble his novels. ⸺ A DRAMA IN MUSLIN. Pp. 329. (_Vizetelly_). 1886. Period: just before and just after the Phœnix Park murders. Some attention is given to Land League tyranny before, and coercion after. The interest centres in a party of girls educated at a convent school at St. Leonard’s, and their subsequent adventures in Irish society looking for husbands, and all eventually going to the bad, with two exceptions. Of these latter, one is a mad missionary and a Protestant, who becomes a Catholic and a nun, the other is a free-thinker and an authoress, a combination which the Author considers natural. For the Irish peasant the Author has only disgust. The picture of a Mass in an Irish chapel (pp. 70-72) would be offensive and painful to a Catholic. Re-issued as _Muslin_, 1915. ⸺ THE UNTILLED FIELD. (_Unwin_). 6_s._ (PHILADELPHIA: _Lippincott_). 1.50. [1903]. New ed. (_Heinemann_). 1914. A series of unconnected sketches of Irish country life, most of which deal with relations between priests and people—evil effects of religion on the latter, banishing joy, producing superstition, killing art. In some of the stories priests are depicted favourably. In the first the subject of the nude in artist’s models is treated with complete frankness. Another contains warnings against emigration. Some of the sketches are exquisite; most of them, religious bias apart, true to life. Has been transl. into Irish under title _An t-Ur Gort_ by P. O’Sullivan. ⸺ THE LAKE. Pp. 340. (_Heinemann_). 6_s._ 1905. (N.Y.: _Appleton_). 1.50.