Dorothy Macardle

This anthology provides access to neglected theatrical work and broadens our understanding of the history of Irish theatre as well as the vital role of women within it. The introduction places these plays in dialogue with one another as well as within the national context of the repealing of women’s rights during the Irish Free State years. These are plays by authors including Mary Manning, Dorothy Macardle, Mary Devenport O’Neill, Kate O'Brien and Margaret O’Leary, which are difficult to access, but which are increasingly visible in Irish theatre scholarship. This unique collection places the playwrights in dialogue to form a tradition of women’s theatrical work that challenges the male-dominated literary canon of Irish theatre, as well as enriching the body of women’s theatrical work in the Anglophone world during the interwar years. Includes the plays:Kate O’Brien – Distinguished Villa (1926)Margaret O’Leary – The Woman (1929)Mary Manning – Youth’s the Season (1931)Dorothy Macardle – Witch’s Brew (1931)Mary Devenport O’Neill – Bluebeard (1933)

This anthology provides access to neglected theatrical work and broadens our understanding of the history of Irish theatre as well as the vital role of women within it. The introduction places these plays in dialogue with one another as well as within the national context of the repealing of women’s rights during the Irish Free State years. These are plays by authors including Mary Manning, Dorothy Macardle, Mary Devenport O’Neill, Kate O'Brien and Margaret O’Leary, which are difficult to access, but which are increasingly visible in Irish theatre scholarship. This unique collection places the playwrights in dialogue to form a tradition of women’s theatrical work that challenges the male-dominated literary canon of Irish theatre, as well as enriching the body of women’s theatrical work in the Anglophone world during the interwar years. Includes the plays:Kate O’Brien – Distinguished Villa (1926)Margaret O’Leary – The Woman (1929)Mary Manning – Youth’s the Season (1931)Dorothy Macardle – Witch’s Brew (1931)Mary Devenport O’Neill – Bluebeard (1933)

'Tis these places are haunted," he said, "by the old Chieftains and Kings." - "Earth-Bound"Originally published in 1924, the nine tales that comprise Earth-Bound were written by Dorothy Macardle while she was held a political prisoner in Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol and Mountjoy Prison. The stories incorporate themes that intrigued her throughout her life; themes out of the myths and legends of Ireland; ghostly interventions, dreams and premonitions, clairvoyance, and the Otherworld in parallel with this one. It is so easy to dismiss them, as some have, merely as part of the narrative of "Irish nationalism" of the time, but it is the supernatural elements that make them much more. She would revisit these themes in later works such as her classic haunted house novel The Uninvited (1941). To this new edition of Macardle's debut collection, reprinted for the first time in ninety years, we have added four more tales of the supernatural.

A classic story of superstition and sorcery set in 1950s France. "The village which had so charmed her had grown sinister…" Exhausted after years of unhappiness, 20-year-old Juliet Cunningham is delighted to find herself living in a village in the French Alps. Recovering in the fresh air of the mountains, she becomes involved in local life. As Juliet makes new friends and meets fellow wanderers – such as the handsome young Michael – she hears of stories of witchery, of fortunes told, of spells, and murder … but are the rumours of the witch true, and can Juliet escape in time? First published in 1953, Dark Enchantment evokes a magical pre-war France, and was written after Macardle’s other successful and influential novels The Uninvited and The Unforeseen. This edition of Dark Enchantment features an introduction by Caroline B Heafey. For fans of Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier and Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. Also by Dorothy Macardle, The Uninvited and The Unforeseen.

When Virgilia Wilde begins to suffer from strange visions she visits her local doctor, reporting somberly that her imagination has been playing tricks. What transpires is far more alarming; Virgilia seems to have developed the power of precognition, and with this terrible ability comes fears for the safety of her beloved daughter... The follow-up to the critically acclaimed haunted-house novel The Uninvited is one of the most sharply observed accounts we have of middle-class post-war Dublin.

A gothic, bone-chilling Irish ghost story first published in 1941 and now brought back into print. The title benefits from an introduction by well-known academic Professor Luke Gibbons and Martin Scorsese and various critics, including William K. Everson and Leonard Maltin, regard The Uninvited as one of the best ghost stories ever filmed.