
George Moore
Spheres of Influence
Liverpool University Press
Published on 6. March 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-1-80596-677-7 (ISBN)
Description
This invigorating volume explores the literary worlds inhabited by the pioneering Irish author George Moore (1852-1933). With an eye to Moore's innovative embrace of visual art, feminism and literary history, and in the spirit of his feisty resistance to 'orthodoxy', it investigates his influences and inventive strategies in novel, short story and memoir. Amongst the names emerging from the disparate spheres of impressionism, literary coteries, the paratextual and the music world are those of Manet, Mallarme, Wilde, Heloise, Elgar and Bourdieu, all with Moorian links. Contested depictions of religion and nationalism simmer; France and French influences encompass fin-de-siecle stories and medieval texts; epistolary details evidence vital parental support; contemporary authors write back to Moore. These voyages of discovery enter the fields of feminist scholarship and the New Woman, life writing and letters, fin-de-siecle aesthetics, intersections between art, music and literature, and literary transitions from Victorian to Modern. Valuably, the authors suggest numerous opportunities for additional research in these areas, as well as within Moore studies. This collection, with contributions from an international set of established and new scholars, delivers fresh and original findings as it builds on the substantial and ever-growing corpus of Moore studies.
Reviews / Votes
'This collection conveys the spirit of an active scholarly community. Moore's relationship with women excites a frenzy of attention - a complex case, and interesting to clarify. Often, a contributor spots George Moore in a contemporary's writing, or notices how a motif from Moore is countered in a work by a contemporary. Overall, a fascinating fusion of scholarship, truly international.' Adrian Frazier, Professor Emeritus at the University of Galway and author of George Moore: 1852-1933More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80596-677-7 (9781805966777)
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
Persons
Kathryn Laing lectures in the Department of English Language and Literature, MIC, University of Limerick. Mary Pierse, an independent scholar, formerly taught in the School of English at University College Cork.
Content
Introduction
I. Artistic Influences and Approaches
The French Artist as Father, Muse and Rival in Memoirs of My Dead Life
Ann Heilmann
"Superfluous" Irish Gentry: Moore and Turgenev
Marta Pellerdi
Literature, Music, Art and the Salon: George Moore's Perennial Courting of Creativity
Mary Pierse
The Prefaces of George Moore: Enigma Variations
Kathi R. Griffin
II. Cherchez la Femme?
Sphinxes without Secrets: Oscar Wilde, George Moore and the Woman Question
Nathalie Saudo Welby
George Moore, London 'Literary Ladies', Networks, and New Artistic Impulses
Kathryn Laing
The "Puzzle" of Gladys Parrish's Carfrae's Comedy and George Moore's Evelyn Innes: Some Intertextual Connections
Brendan Fleming
III. France: Fiction and Letters
Between France and Ireland: How George Moore and Helen Waddell used Heloise and Abelard
George Hughes
A French Train of Thought in 'Two Men, a Railway Story': From Impressionism to Expressionism
Michel Brunet
Epistolary Truths: 'How one runs to ones mother when in trouble'
Maggie Breslin
IV. Politics, Religion and Nationality
George Moore and Decadent Catholicism: a Case Study of Evelyn Innes
Claire Masurel Murray
George Moore's Irish Catholic Characters With 'English' Names
David Clare
Appropriating George Moore: J.O. Hannay's The Seething Pot
Conor Montague
I. Artistic Influences and Approaches
The French Artist as Father, Muse and Rival in Memoirs of My Dead Life
Ann Heilmann
"Superfluous" Irish Gentry: Moore and Turgenev
Marta Pellerdi
Literature, Music, Art and the Salon: George Moore's Perennial Courting of Creativity
Mary Pierse
The Prefaces of George Moore: Enigma Variations
Kathi R. Griffin
II. Cherchez la Femme?
Sphinxes without Secrets: Oscar Wilde, George Moore and the Woman Question
Nathalie Saudo Welby
George Moore, London 'Literary Ladies', Networks, and New Artistic Impulses
Kathryn Laing
The "Puzzle" of Gladys Parrish's Carfrae's Comedy and George Moore's Evelyn Innes: Some Intertextual Connections
Brendan Fleming
III. France: Fiction and Letters
Between France and Ireland: How George Moore and Helen Waddell used Heloise and Abelard
George Hughes
A French Train of Thought in 'Two Men, a Railway Story': From Impressionism to Expressionism
Michel Brunet
Epistolary Truths: 'How one runs to ones mother when in trouble'
Maggie Breslin
IV. Politics, Religion and Nationality
George Moore and Decadent Catholicism: a Case Study of Evelyn Innes
Claire Masurel Murray
George Moore's Irish Catholic Characters With 'English' Names
David Clare
Appropriating George Moore: J.O. Hannay's The Seething Pot
Conor Montague