Maggie O'Farrell
Contemporary Critical Perspectives
Published on 24. July 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-1-350-32504-3 (ISBN)
Description
Bringing together cultural analysis and textual readings on critically-acclaimed bestseller and winner of the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction, Maggie O'Farrell, this collection covers her nine novels, her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am, two children's books and features an exclusive interview with the author herself.
The first full-length study of O'Farrell's work, this book offers critical explorations from her earliest works to the award-winning Hamnet and most recent best-selling novel, The Marriage Portrait.
With a timeline of her life and works, as well as suggested further reading, the themes explored include grief and sacrifice, longing and belonging, trauma, translation, palimpsestic texts and the relation of her work to history and the female domestic gothic.
The first full-length study of O'Farrell's work, this book offers critical explorations from her earliest works to the award-winning Hamnet and most recent best-selling novel, The Marriage Portrait.
With a timeline of her life and works, as well as suggested further reading, the themes explored include grief and sacrifice, longing and belonging, trauma, translation, palimpsestic texts and the relation of her work to history and the female domestic gothic.
Reviews / Votes
Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet brought her the critical acclaim she has long deserved, and now this excellent collection of essays brings her the scholarly attention she merits. These essays are theoretically savvy and offer smart but accessible readings that will return readers and scholars to the delights of O'Farrell's work. * Jo Eldridge Carney, Professor of English, The College of New Jersey, USA *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 232 mm
Width: 154 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
280 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-32504-3 (9781350325043)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€31.99
Available for download
E-Book
12/2023
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€31.99
Available for download
Person
Elaine Canning is a writer, editor and public engagement specialist living in Swansea, South Wales, UK. Originally from Belfast, she holds an MA and PhD in Hispanic Studies from Queen's University, Belfast, and an MA in Creative Writing from Swansea University. She is currently Head of Special Projects at Swansea University, which include the Rhys Davies National Short Story Competition and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. She has authored a monograph and papers on Spanish Golden-Age drama and her short stories have appeared in Nation.Cymru and The Lonely Crowd. Editor of Take a Bite: The Rhys Davies Short Story Award Anthology (2021), New World, New Beginnings: Resilience and Connectivity through Poetry (2021), and Cree: The Rhys Davies Short Story Award Anthology (2022), she is also the author of a debut novel, The Sandstone City (2022) and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
Content
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Chronology of Maggie O'Farrell's Life and Works
Introduction - Elaine Canning (Swansea University, UK)
In Search of Maggie O'Farrell
1. 'The Space Between': Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (Susan Alice Fischer, Medgar Evers College/CUNY, USA)
2. Love, Loss and (Be)longing in After You'd Gone and The Distance Between Us (Elaine Canning, Swansea University, UK)
3. 'The Women We Become After Children': Palimpsests of the City and the Self in Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That First Held Mine (Ruth Gilligan, University of Birmingham, UK)
4. Vantage Points: How Maggie O'Farrell Dissects a Marriage by Shifting Points of View in This Must Be the Place (Edward Matthews, San Diego, USA)
5. Lost in Translation: The Dis-Located Structures of Maggie O'Farrell's My Lover's Lover (Sarah Gamble, Swansea University, UK)
6. 'A small victory for Love over Death': the haunted narratives of I Am, I Am, I Am, Instructions for a Heatwave, and The Hand that First Held Mine (Tasha Alden, Aberystwyth University, UK)
7. The taming shrew: Agnes in Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet as (early) modern husbander (Nicholas Taylor-Collins, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK)
8. Filling Historical and Emotional Voids: Hamnet (Laurie Maguire, University of Oxford, UK)
9. Remaking the Duchess: Underpainting and Overpainting in The Marriage Portrait (Elaine Canning, Swansea University, UK)
10. 'Post-It Baby': An Interview with Maggie O'Farrell (Elaine Canning, Swansea University, UK)
Bibliography
Further Reading
Index
Contributors
Chronology of Maggie O'Farrell's Life and Works
Introduction - Elaine Canning (Swansea University, UK)
In Search of Maggie O'Farrell
1. 'The Space Between': Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (Susan Alice Fischer, Medgar Evers College/CUNY, USA)
2. Love, Loss and (Be)longing in After You'd Gone and The Distance Between Us (Elaine Canning, Swansea University, UK)
3. 'The Women We Become After Children': Palimpsests of the City and the Self in Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That First Held Mine (Ruth Gilligan, University of Birmingham, UK)
4. Vantage Points: How Maggie O'Farrell Dissects a Marriage by Shifting Points of View in This Must Be the Place (Edward Matthews, San Diego, USA)
5. Lost in Translation: The Dis-Located Structures of Maggie O'Farrell's My Lover's Lover (Sarah Gamble, Swansea University, UK)
6. 'A small victory for Love over Death': the haunted narratives of I Am, I Am, I Am, Instructions for a Heatwave, and The Hand that First Held Mine (Tasha Alden, Aberystwyth University, UK)
7. The taming shrew: Agnes in Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet as (early) modern husbander (Nicholas Taylor-Collins, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK)
8. Filling Historical and Emotional Voids: Hamnet (Laurie Maguire, University of Oxford, UK)
9. Remaking the Duchess: Underpainting and Overpainting in The Marriage Portrait (Elaine Canning, Swansea University, UK)
10. 'Post-It Baby': An Interview with Maggie O'Farrell (Elaine Canning, Swansea University, UK)
Bibliography
Further Reading
Index