O’Duffy, Eimar.

[The Cuanduine Trilogy] Volume I: “King Goshawk and The Birds” (First Edition. London, Macmillan, 1926) / Volume II: “The Spacious Adventures of the Man in the Street” (First Edition. London, Macmillan, 1928) / Volume III: “Asses in Clover” (First Edition. London, Putnam, 1933).

First Edition. Three Volumes (Complete Trilogy). London and New York, Putnam ad Macmillan, 1926-1933. Octavo. Pagination: Volume I: 319 pages / Volume II: 407 pages / Volume III: 331 pages. Hardcover / All three Volumes in original publisher’s illustrated cloth (no dustjackets). Very good condition with some minor signs of external wear. Minor signs of foxing only. Stronger signs of staining to cover of Volume I and minor sign of staining to cover of Volume II only. All three bindings firm and sturdy. Very rare first edition set of the complete Trilogy.

O’Duffy’s central achievement in fiction was the Cuanduine trilogy, which blended satire and fantasy in its critique of capitalism. King Goshawk and the birds (1926) describes a future world dominated by king capitalists, one of whom, Goshawk, is pitted against a Cú-Chulainn restored to life in a clash between the mercenary and the heroic. In the novel Cú-Chulainn fathers a son, Cuanduine, whose adventures are also recounted. The spacious adventures of the man in the street (1928) recounts the experiences of Aloysius O’Kennedy, a Gulliver-like figure who visits the planet Rathé (an anagram for Earth), and observes its people’s foibles, including uninhibited indulgence in sex and yet guilt over eating food. The third volume in the series, Asses in clover (1933), recounts Cuanduine’s conflict with Goshawk but is not of the same high quality as its two predecessors.

O’Duffy, Eimar (Ultan) (1893–1935), dramatist and novelist, was born 29 September 1893 in Dublin, son of Kevin O’Duffy, a prominent society dentist. He attended the Jesuit public school, Stonyhurst, in England and took a degree in dentistry at UCD, though he never practised as a dentist. In college his interests were mostly political and cultural and he edited the student magazine St Stephen’s. His father wanted him to join the British army, but O’Duffy refused and was ostracised by his family as a result.

O’Duffy joined the IRB and the Irish Volunteers and was one of the chief contributors on military affairs to its newspaper, the Irish Volunteer. In 1916 he and Bulmer Hobson warned Eoin MacNeill of the impending Easter rising and MacNeill sent him to Belfast to dissuade volunteers from rising there. O’Duffy never changed his view that the rising had been a mistake. Disillusioned with nationalism, he came to rely with greater certainty on his socialism. (Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography)

• Keywords: Catalogue Irish History Seven – Irish Literature – Poetry – Music – Theatre · Catalogue No.10 – International Literature · Irish History – Rare · Irish Literature – 20th Century · Irish Literature – Rare
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 32341AB

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