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ELT : VOLUME 35:2 1992 preservation of Irish folk materials or even his essays and poetry would not have gained for him, although he was also the first president of the National Literary Society, a post which gave him an additional platform for disseminating his ideas on the necessity of deanglicization and the importance of acknowledging Irish place roots. It was the publication in 1899 of A Literary History of Ireland that "would do the most to establish Hyde's reputation as an outstanding scholar," and Hyde must have felt great satisfaction when the Irish Universities Bill, enacted in 1908, made possible for him a university professorship at the new University College in Dublin, a post that had been consistently denied him by his alma mater, Trinity College, where his work as a student had been exemplary. Hyde was passed over for appointment to the Senate of the newly created Free State, unlike W. B. Yeats who was given a seat in recognition of his contribution to the making of the new state. Hyde was given a vacated seat in 1925, although when he attempted to claim the seat in open election, he was defeated. His final recognition came when he was called out of retirement by DeValera to become the first President of Ireland, a largely ceremonial post but one which as Ireland's Gray Emininence Hyde enjoyed until three years before his death in 1949. The Douglas Hyde that the Dunleavy biography brings into focus is a man knowable at last in many respects in all of the complexities of his times and conditions. His considerable contributions to the Ireland that emerged in the twentieth century are made clear in their good proportions , and the evidence is itself convincing. The reader is blessedly spared what too often is the biographer's need to elevate the importance of the subject, for the Dunleavys do not engage in special pleading; they simply bring the complicated life and world of Hyde into order and meaning and it speaks sufficiently for itself. Donna Gerstenberger _________________________ University of Washington The Ruin of Parnell Hugh Leonard. Parnell and the Englishwoman. London: Penguin Books, 1991. 265 pp. Paper £4.99 THE SUBJECT of this brief historical novel was the basis of the four-part drama series, "Parnell and the Englishwoman," which was presented on BBC-TV during the first half of 1991. The author, Hugh Leonard, is an Irish playwright and former literary editor of the Abbey 268 BOOK REVIEWS Theatre in Dublin who has achieved renown for his plays and especially his adaptation for television of works by Emily Brontë, Dickens, Flaubert , Maugham, and Saki. The television presentation of "Parnell and the Englishwoman" was a huge success not only because of its historical accuracy, but its fine production and cast. The actors Trevor Eve as Charles Stewart Parnell, David Robb as Captain William O'Shea, and those who portrayed Joseph Chamberlain, Gladstone, and Tim Healy were excellent and bore an uncanny resemblance to their real-life counterparts. Unfortunately, the very handsome Francesca Annis was miscast as Mrs. Kitty O'Shea; Annis is much prettier than the rather plain and dumpy Mrs. O'Shea. Of course, Leonard's story offers in description and dialogue much more than could be included in his television script. Leonard's work is a very good example of the blend of historical fact and imagination and the historical novel at its best. It reflects careful historical research to provide a faithful representation of character and motive. Parnell is portrayed as the brilliant, cold, arrogant, and flawed person which those who dealt with him knew him to be. The major protagonist in ParneU's affair with Mrs. O'Shea is the feckless and self-destructive husband, Captain O'Shea, who was more the manipulated than the manipulator by forces and personalities (such as Chamberlain ) which he never really understood. If Leonard has erred in his delineation of O'Shea, it is in portraying him as more of a cuckolded husband than he really was. He knew what was going on between his wife and Parnell and sought to make the most of the affair. The portrayals of the wily, sanctimonious Gladstone...

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