Cost and Registration Information

Early Registration Price (August 7 at 10 am – August 31 at 4 pm): $220
Regular Registration Price (August 31 at 4 pm – first day of class): $242

Members, seniors, and students get a 10% discount.

This seminar is full. Please call (312) 255-3700 to be added to the wait list.

Mark your Calendar!

The Newberry Bookstore will re-open on August 14, and you will once again be able to find most of your assigned books for sale there.

Seminar Description

More accessible than novels or plays, short stories provide a ready introduction to the themes and styles that make Irish literature so popular. We will read stories by more than two dozen writers, including Maria Edgeworth, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Liam O’Flaherty, Edna O’Brien, Sean O’Faolain, Mary Lavin, Frank O’Connor, and Brendan Behan. Class sessions will include discussions of the readings and short lectures on the authors’ biographies and the historical contexts of their work.

Six sessions. E - $220, L - $242

Matthew Bird, a law librarian and independent scholar with a PhD in International Politics from the University of Wales, studied Irish literature and history at University College Dublin and Princeton University.

Materials List

Required:

• Deirdre Madden, All Over Ireland: New Irish Short Stories, Faber & Faber, 2017. ISBN: 978-0571311033
• Frank O'Connor, Classic Irish Short Stories, Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN: 978-0192819185
• William Trevor, Oxford Book of Short Stories, Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0199583140

First Reading:

For the first class, please read:

• Maria Edgeworth, "The Limerick Gloves " in Oxford Book of Short Stories
• George Moore, "Home Sickness" in Classic Irish Short Stories
• Oscar Wilde, "The Sphinx Without a Secret" in Oxford Book of Short Stories
• Somerville & Ross, "Lisheen Races, Second-Hand" in Classic Irish Short Stories

This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program. Learn more about our registration procedures.