Folio Archives 342: The Informer by Liam O’Flaherty 1961

The Informer by Liam O’Flaherty 1961

The action in this beautifully written novel lasts just over 12 hours from 6pm one evening to a few minutes after 6am the next morning. Set in the gritty and poverty stricken slums of Dublin in the 1920s, it follows Gypo, an extraordinarily strong but simple drifter and expelled member of the revolutionary movement who desperate for sixpence to buy a bed in a doss house for the night, informs on his best friend to claim the £20 reward.

The novel describes the characters of the grimy parts of the city from prostitutes to revolutionaries, to the grieving and the aggrieved. It is quite compelling reading, can be easily read in a day and allows an insight into the appalling conditions faced by the Irish a century ago.

The book has no introduction or frontispiece, but there are eight bound-in monochrome lithographs by Nigel Lambourne with Gypo featuring in all of them. The endpapers are printed with a black and white pattern on cream paper and the page tops are stained dark brown. The 192 page book is bound in light brown canvas blocked in black with a wrap-around black design with a gilt spine title that runs from bottom to top. The green-blue slipcase measures 23.6x15.5cm.













































An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

Thanks for the overview.

I haven't read it yet, but I have seen the wonderful John Ford film based on this book. A heartbreaking performance by the lead, Victor McLaglen.

I'll be on the look out for a copy of this edition.

>2 PartTimeBookAddict: What's the name of that film? I'm a huge fan of The Quiet Man and so I'm sure the Ford/ VMc combination would be a hit for me.

>1 wcarter: You write above in your fascinating post that 'The novel describes the characters of the grimy parts of the city from prostitutes to revolutionaries, to the grieving and the aggrieved. It is quite compelling reading, can be easily read in a day and allows an insight into the appalling conditions faced by the Irish a century ago'.

20th century history is not my strong point but would the conditions in 1920s Manchester, Chicago or Berlin have been any better for that part of society ('the characters of the grimy parts of the city from prostitutes to revolutionaries, to the grieving and the aggrieved') than in Dublin?

>4 English-bookseller:
I suspect Ireland was a poorer country and more oppressed than those you mention.

>3 LesMiserables:
The Informer!

1935, won four Oscars I believe.

>4 English-bookseller: >5 wcarter: After a War of Independence and a Civil War the new state had no money. It could not afford running things like schools and hospitals and so left it to the Catholic Church which greatly added to the latter's power in the country. I would say Warwick's comment was accurate.

An interesting column on it below:

https://www.thejournal.ie/1925-famine-1740003-Oct2014/

>6 ranbarnes: Thanks.

Enabled!

Thanks to Warwick's opening post and all those who have contributed above so much information on Irish history soon after its separation from the UK.

I took an A Level and then my degree in History and it's clear that I know damn all about recent Irish history.

If I may repeat an old saw, there's an awful lot of history in Ireland.