O'Grady, Standish James
Entry updated 23 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1846-1928) Irish editor, controversialist and author, whose opinions straddled (and were an irritant to) a large range of opinion about the fate of Ireland. His works of history being unpopular for reason of contentiousness, he created a thematically connected array of novels, beginning with Finn and His Companions (1891) (a tale for children) and The Coming of Cuculain: A Romance of the Heroic Age of Ireland (1894), in all of which the history of Ireland is recast in legendary terms.
O'Grady is of sf interest primarily for The Queen of the World; Or, Under the Tyranny (1899 Kilkenny Moderator and Irish Weekly Independent as "The Tyranny"; 1900) as by Luke Netterville, a tale presented as the manuscript of a young Irishman named de Lacy who is transported by a mysterious form of Time Travel to twenty-second century Argentina, where he learns that the Chinese (see Yellow Peril) had conquered the world some time earlier, but that a revolutionary movement – led from an Underground Keep in Antarctica by the exiled King of England – continues to resist the advanced Weapons of the Chinese, including a disintegrating Ray, with weapons of its own. After many battles, the Chinese are defeated, a Pax Aeronautica is established, and de Lacy is returned to the present, where he writes down his story. [JC]
Standish James O'Grady
born Castletownbere, County Cork, Ireland: 18 September 1846
died Isle of Wight: 18 May 1928
works (selected)
- Finn and His Companions (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1892) [in The Children's Library: illus/hb/Jack B Yeats]
- The Coming of Cuculain: A Romance of the Heroic Age of Ireland (London: Methuen and Co, 1894) [hb/]
- Lost on Du-Corrig; Or, Twixt Earth and Ocean (London: Cassell and Co, 1894) [hb/]
- The Chain of Gold: A Tale of Adventure on the West Coast of Ireland (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1895) [hb/]
- Ulrick the Ready; Or, The Chieftain's Last Rally (London: Downey and Co, 1896) [hb/]
- The Queen of the World; Or, Under the Tyranny (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1900) as by Luke Netterville [first appeared 1899 Kilkenny Moderator and Irish Weekly Independent as "The Tyranny": hb/nonpictorial]
- The Departure of Dermot (Dublin, Ireland: The Talbot Press, 1917) [chap: hb/]
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