To School Through the Fields: An Irish Country Childhood - Softcover

Taylor, Alice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312105606 ISBN 13: 9780312105600

Publisher: St Martin's Press, 1994

Synopsis

'A delightful evocation of Irishness and of the author's deep-rooted love of the very fields of home' Publishers Weekly

Alice Taylor’s classic account of growing up in the Irish countryside, the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland.

If ever a voice has captured the colours, the rhythms, the rich, bittersweet emotions of a time gone by, it is Alice Taylor's. Her tales of childhood in rural Ireland hark back to a timeless past, to a world now lost, but ever and fondly remembered. The colourful characters and joyous moments she offers have made To School Through the Fields an Irish phenomenon, and have made Alice herself the most beloved author in all of Ireland. A must-have for fans of Alice Taylor.

About this title

Review

A delightful evocation of Irishness and of the author’s deep-rooted
love of “the very fields of home” ... with its rituals and local characters

(Publisher’s Weekly)

One of the most richly evocative and moving portraits of
childhood ever written.

(Boston Globe)

Ireland’s Laurie Lee ... a chronicler of fading village life
and rural rituals

(The Observer)

About the Author

Alice Taylor lives in the village of Innishannon in County Cork, in a house attached to the local supermarket and post office. Since her eldest son has taken over responsibility for the shop, she has been able to devote more time to her writing.

Alice Taylor worked as a telephonist in Killarney and Bandon. When she married, she moved to Innishannon where she ran a guesthouse at first, then the supermarket and post office. She and her husband, Gabriel Murphy, who sadly passed away in 2005, had four sons and one daughter. In 1984 she edited and published the first issue of Candlelight, a local magazine which has since appeared annually. In 1986 she published an illustrated collection of her own verse.

To School Through the Fields was published in May 1988. It was an immediate success, launching Alice on a series of signing sessions, talks and readings the length and breadth of Ireland. Her first radio interview, forty two minutes long on RTÉ Radio's Gay Byrne Show, was the most talked about radio programme of 1988, and her first television interview, of the same length, was the highlight of the year on RTÉ television's Late Late Show. Since then she has appeared on radio programmes such as Woman's Hour, Midweek and The Gloria Hunniford Show, and she has been the subject of major profiles in the Observer and the Mail on Sunday.

To School Through the Fields quickly became the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland, and her sequels, Quench the Lamp, The Village, Country Days and The Night Before Christmas, were also outstandingly successful. Since their initial publication these books of memoirs have also been translated and sold internationally.

Alice has also written fiction: her first novel, The Woman of the House, was an immediate bestseller in Ireland, topping the paperback fiction lists for many weeks and the saga continues in two further books.

One of Ireland's most popular authors, her most recent book is Tea and Talk.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martin's Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0312105606
• ISBN 13: 9780312105600
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 151