Molly Keane (1904–1996)
Author of Good Behaviour
About the Author
Works by Molly Keane
The Enchanting Witch 1 copy
Associated Works
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Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Keane, Mary Nesta
Skrine, Mary Nesta (birth) - Other names
- Farrell, M. J.
- Birthdate
- 1904-07-20
- Date of death
- 1996-04-22
- Burial location
- Church of Ireland Church, Ardmore, County Waterford, Ireland
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Ireland
- Birthplace
- Ballyrankin, County Kildare, Ireland
- Place of death
- Ardmore, County Waterford, Ireland
- Places of residence
- Ballyrankin, County Wexford, Ireland
Ardmore, County Waterford, Ireland - Education
- boarding school
- Occupations
- novelist
writer
author
playwright - Relationships
- O'Neill, Moira (mother)
Phipps, Sally (daughter) - Organizations
- Aosdána (member)
- Agent
- Georgia Glover (David Higham Associates)
- Short biography
- Molly Keane was an Anglo-Irish writer born and raised in Ireland, in a hunting, fishing family. Her mother was a minor poet. She was articulate and well-informed although having received little education from governesses and boarding school. She began writing anonymously, as it would have been held disgraceful for a young lady of her time to have her name appear in print. She wrote 10 novels between 1928 and 1952, and four plays, with John Perry, by 1961, highly regarded by critic James Agate. After her husband Robert Keane died at the age of 36, she stopped writing for many years, then made her comeback with Good Behaviour (1981), which became a literary sensation. Her extraordinary novels are beloved for their black comedy and the dialogue with which she brought to life the (now gone) privileged world in which she grew up -- often involving genteel poverty and loneliness. She died in 1996, leaving two daughters.
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Folio Archives 285: Good Behaviour by Molly Keane 2012 in Folio Society Devotees (August 2022)
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Statistics
- Works
- 19
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 3,078
- Popularity
- #8,297
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 75
- ISBNs
- 119
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 22
She grew up so sheltered she can't read between the lines and see through "good behaviour", and as such reading her life of both recognised and unrecognised humiliations was more sad than entertaining.
That said she's also so snobbish in only entertaining friendship from the right class of people, really no better than her awful family, that she never held my sympathy for long.… (more)