Edinburgh Companion to Irish Literature and Periodical Culture

This Companion examines the manifold interactions between Irish literature and the periodical press since the nineteenth century. The thirty original contributions map a highly diverse Irish and international magazine landscape that has played a crucial role in fostering, mediating, circulating and translating Irish poetry and prose. By bringing new archival material to bear on canonical writers such as Emily Lawless, Mary Lavin, John McGahern and James Joyce, this book showcases cutting-edge research situated at the crossroads of Irish studies, periodical criticism and the digital humanities. It offers a variegated view of the different agents in transnational periodical networks, investigating the role of authors, editors, publishers and readers in Ireland, as well as considering the circulation of Irish writers in British and American publications. It also recovers forgotten voices by providing the first comprehensive critical accounts of little magazines including A Celtic Christmas, Honest Ulsterman, Kilkenny Magazine, Broadsheet, The Dubliner and Surge. Altogether, The Edinburgh Companion to Irish Literature and Periodical Culture demonstrates the pivotal role of periodicals in the codification of genres and the formation of an Irish literary canon.

Elke D’hoker is Full Professor of English Literature at the University of Leuven and Director of the Leuven Centre for Irish Studies. She has published widely on Irish fiction, the modern short story, periodical studies and literary pedagogy. She is the author of Irish Women Writers and the Modern Short Story (2016) and Visions of Alterity: Representation in the Works of John Banville (2004). She has edited or co-edited 11 books, including The Writer’s Torch: Reading Stories from The Bell (2022), Sarah Hall. Critical Essays (2022), Ethel Colburn Mayne. Selected Stories (2021), The Modern Short Story and Magazine Culture (2021), The Irish Short Story (2015) and Mary Lavin (2013). Phyllis Boumans is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Radboud Institute for Culture and History at Radboud University Nijmegen. She previously worked as Lecturer at Stockholm University. Her work has appeared in Irish University Review, New Hibernia Review and Irish Studies Review, and she is co-editor of a special issue on Remapping Irish Literary and Cultural Landscapes in the Mid-Twentieth-Century for the Review of Irish Studies in Europe (2024) and The Writer’s Torch: Reading Stories from The Bell (2022). Her current postdoctoral project focuses on mid-twentieth-century Irish radio stories.