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Issue Details: First known date: 1998... 1998 The Great Shame : A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

"In the nineteenth century, Ireland lost half of its population to famine, emigration to the United States and Canada, and the forced transportation of convicts to Australia. The forebears of Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List, were victims of that tragedy, and in The Great Shame Keneally has written an astonishing, monumental work that tells the full story of the Irish diaspora with the narrative grip and flair of a great novel. Based on unique research among little-known sources, this masterly book surveys eighty years of Irish history through the eyes of political prisoners--including Keneally's ancestors--who left Ireland in chains and eventually found glory, in one form or another, in Australia and America.

We meet William Smith O'Brien, leader of an uprising at the height of the Irish Famine, who rose from solitary confinement in Australia to become the Mandela of his age; Thomas Francis Meagher, whose escape from Australian captivity led to a glittering American career as an orator, a Union general, and governor of Montana; John Mitchel, who became a Confederate newspaper reporter, gave two of his sons to the Southern cause, was imprisoned with Jefferson Davis--and returned to Ireland to become mayor of Tipperary; and John Boyle O'Reilly, who fled a life sentence in Australia to become one of nineteenth-century America's leading literary lights.

Through the lives of many such men and women--famous and obscure, some heroes and some fools (most a little of both), all of them stubborn, acutely sensitive, and devastatingly charming--we become immersed in the Irish experience and its astonishing history. From Ireland to Canada and the United States to the bush towns of Australia, we are plunged into stories of tragedy, survival, and triumph. All are vividly portrayed in Keneally's spellbinding prose, as he reveals the enormous influence the exiled Irish have had on the English-speaking world."

-Publisher's blurb.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Milsons Point, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Random House , 1998 .
      image of person or book cover 3008790015913925096.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: xii, 731p.p.
      Description: [32] p. of plates : illus., maps, ports.
      ISBN: 0091837367
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Talese ,
      1999 .
      image of person or book cover 94925361117715589.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 712p.p.
      ISBN: 9780385476973, 0385476973
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Vintage UK ,
      1999 .
      image of person or book cover 5355769218560268819.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 731p.p.
      ISBN: 9780749386047, 0749386045
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Anchor ,
      2010 .
      image of person or book cover 1662510702649980265.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 803p.p.
      ISBN: 0307764397, 9780307764393

Works about this Work

A National (Diasporic?) Living Treasure : Thomas Keneally Paul Sharrad , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Le Simplegadi , November no. 14 2015; (p. 20-27)
Although Thomas Keneally is firmly located as a national figure, his international literary career and his novels’ inspection of colonial exile, Aboriginal alienation, and movements of people throughout history reflect aspects of diasporic experience, while pushing the term itself into wider meaning of the transnational.
Traduit de l’américain : Thomas Keneally and the Mechanics of an International Career David Carter , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Book History , vol. 16 no. 2013; (p. 364-386)

'Internationally, Thomas Keneally is one of Australia’s most successful authors, whether in terms of critical reception, book sales, or author profile. He is probably best known as the author of Schindler’s List from 1982—Schindler’s Ark in Britain and Australasia—even if his fame in this regard has been somewhat obscured by Stephen Spielberg’s multi-Oscar-winning movie of 1993. The story of how Keneally came to write this book and its subsequent success is one of the more remarkable episodes in Australian book history, and of course it is by no means confined to Australia, its point of origin only in a very qualified sense. Published simultaneously in London, New York, and Sydney, Schindler’s List appeared in at least eight different English-language and fourteen foreign-language editions even before the release of Spielberg’s movie. It won the Booker Prize for 1982, the first by an Australian novelist, although Keneally had already been short-listed for the award on three occasions. Across the Atlantic, it was one of the New York Times ’ Best Books of 1982, and in the following year the winner of the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize. The movie’s success meant new English and American editions together with a dozen or so translations in 1994 alone, including Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, and Catalan versions. New Czech and Marathi editions appeared as recently as 2009.' (Author's introduction)

y separately published work icon Ancestral Narratives: Irish-Australian Identities in History and Fiction Chad Habel , Saarbrucken : VDM Verlag , 2008-2009 Z1664583 2008-2009 single work criticism
Recolonisation and Disinheritance : The Case of Tasmania Peter Pierce , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Critics and Writers Speak : Revisioning Post-Colonial Studies 2006; (p. 106-114)
'The essay discusses the appropriations of the history and landscape of Tasmania, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and particularly by outsiders to the state, whether they are European or from the Australian mainland' (106). Pierce draws on the texts cited above, and on critical responses to these texts to demonstrate the conflicted experiences of departure from Tasmania and, in some cases, an equally unsettling return.
Native Voices : Irish Speaking Characters in Thomas Keneally's The Great Shame and Christopher Koch's Out of Ireland Dymphna Lonergan , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: New Voices in Irish Criticism 3 2002; (p. 88-94)
Review E. Cargan , 2000 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 14 no. 1 2000; (p. 85-86)

— Review of The Great Shame : A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New Thomas Keneally , 1998 single work prose
Review D. Fitzpatrick , 2000 single work review
— Appears in: TLS , 21 January 2000; (p. 36)

— Review of The Great Shame : A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New Thomas Keneally , 1998 single work prose
Review Rebecca Pelan , 2000 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 158 2000; (p. 115-117)

— Review of The Great Shame : A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New Thomas Keneally , 1998 single work prose
Review R. Davis , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: Island , Autumn no. 78 1999; (p. 98-105)

— Review of The Great Shame : A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New Thomas Keneally , 1998 single work prose
Review Oliver MacDonagh , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , March vol. 43 no. 3 1999; (p. 82-83)

— Review of The Great Shame : A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New Thomas Keneally , 1998 single work prose
Keneally Points Tasmanians to Their Rich History Damian Bester , 1996 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Mercury , 6 April 1996; (p. 41)
Recolonisation and Disinheritance : The Case of Tasmania Peter Pierce , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Critics and Writers Speak : Revisioning Post-Colonial Studies 2006; (p. 106-114)
'The essay discusses the appropriations of the history and landscape of Tasmania, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and particularly by outsiders to the state, whether they are European or from the Australian mainland' (106). Pierce draws on the texts cited above, and on critical responses to these texts to demonstrate the conflicted experiences of departure from Tasmania and, in some cases, an equally unsettling return.
Native Voices : Irish Speaking Characters in Thomas Keneally's The Great Shame and Christopher Koch's Out of Ireland Dymphna Lonergan , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: New Voices in Irish Criticism 3 2002; (p. 88-94)
y separately published work icon Ancestral Narratives: Irish-Australian Identities in History and Fiction Chad Habel , Saarbrucken : VDM Verlag , 2008-2009 Z1664583 2008-2009 single work criticism
Traduit de l’américain : Thomas Keneally and the Mechanics of an International Career David Carter , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Book History , vol. 16 no. 2013; (p. 364-386)

'Internationally, Thomas Keneally is one of Australia’s most successful authors, whether in terms of critical reception, book sales, or author profile. He is probably best known as the author of Schindler’s List from 1982—Schindler’s Ark in Britain and Australasia—even if his fame in this regard has been somewhat obscured by Stephen Spielberg’s multi-Oscar-winning movie of 1993. The story of how Keneally came to write this book and its subsequent success is one of the more remarkable episodes in Australian book history, and of course it is by no means confined to Australia, its point of origin only in a very qualified sense. Published simultaneously in London, New York, and Sydney, Schindler’s List appeared in at least eight different English-language and fourteen foreign-language editions even before the release of Spielberg’s movie. It won the Booker Prize for 1982, the first by an Australian novelist, although Keneally had already been short-listed for the award on three occasions. Across the Atlantic, it was one of the New York Times ’ Best Books of 1982, and in the following year the winner of the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize. The movie’s success meant new English and American editions together with a dozen or so translations in 1994 alone, including Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, and Catalan versions. New Czech and Marathi editions appeared as recently as 2009.' (Author's introduction)

Last amended 11 Jun 2020 14:09:15
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