The March Art of Reading book club features Colm in conversation with Adrian Frazier about the novel Esther Waters by George Moore.  Listen here or watch below.  

^{George Moore portrait by Mark Fisher} 

‘In this novel, Moore works like a nineteenth century French painter in drawing a portrait of a spirited young women of reduced circumstances facing her destiny in an unforgiving world.’ Colm Tóibín

George Augustus Moore, otherwise known as GM, was born in Carnacun, Co Mayo in 1852. He was the son of George Henry Moore, an Irish MP.  During his lifetime he lived in Paris and Dublin as well as London, where he died in 1933.  He wrote prose, drama, memoir, poetry and art criticism.  He was a prolific writer and his most well-known work includes the autobiography Confessions of a Young Man (1889), an autobiographical trilogy Hail and Farewell (1911-14) and the novels A Mummer’s Wife (1885), Esther Waters (1894), Evelyn Innes (1896) and Sister Teresa (1901).  The film Albert Nobbs, which features a screenplay co-written by John Banville, is based on a story by Moore.

His early writing was influenced by the works of modern French writers including Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola. Moore is known for introducing French naturalism into English and Irish literature. His writing is said to have influenced Joyce’s realism and he is often credited as being the first great modern Irish novelist.  

Adrian Frazier is a professor emeritus of National University of Ireland, Galway, and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.  He is the author of George Moore, 1852-1933 (2000), as well as books on the Yeats and Annie Horniman, John Ford and Abbey Actors, the sculptor John Behan, and most recently, The Adulterous Muse: Maud Gonne, Lucien Millevoye, and W. B. Yeats.  At present he is writing a biography of the poet John Montague (1929-2016).