Irish Classics: Ten Books from Swift to Joyce

Ireland’s contribution to this shelf is out of all proportion to its size, and it divides neatly into two centuries: the Anglo-Irish satire of Swift and the Gothic of Le Fanu and Stoker, then the revival that produced Wilde, Yeats’s circle and Joyce.

Ten books by five authors, from Gulliver’s Travels to Ulysses, and the last of them rewrites the first: Swift’s clean prose and savage indignation reappear in Joyce as a Dublin day, and the Gothic machinery of Carmilla and Dracula becomes material for comedy in Wilde.

A practical note: the two Joyce books are the two longest here and the two Swift pamphlets the shortest, so a reader who wants one Irish book this month should start at either end of the table and not in the middle.

Every Irish title on this shelf

Ten titles, oldest first, from 1726 to 1922 and about 830,000 words.

YearTitleAuthorFormWordsReading time
1726Gulliver’s TravelsJonathan SwiftNovel104,0006 h
1729A Modest ProposalJonathan SwiftPamphlet3,4671 h
1872CarmillaJoseph Sheridan Le FanuNovel28,0832 h
1888The Happy Prince and Other TalesOscar WildeNovel16,0851 h
1890The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar WildeNovel79,0004 h
1895The Importance of Being EarnestOscar WildePlay21,3491 h
1897DraculaBram StokerNovel161,0009 h
1914DublinersJames JoyceNovel70,5924 h
1916A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManJames JoyceNovel86,0005 h
1922UlyssesJames JoyceNovel261,43315 h

How this list was made

Authors are included when Wikidata records Irish citizenship, plus a small editorial list of writers born in Ireland whose citizenship field is British, as was usual before 1922. Each author’s book page carries the note.

Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist are long; the two Swift pamphlets are short enough to read on a train. Word counts are for the editions here.

Questions readers ask

Is Ulysses readable without a guide?
It is readable, but not quickly. The book page breaks the eighteen episodes down; most readers take a chapter a day and keep a map of Dublin open.
Why is Dracula an Irish book?
Because Bram Stoker was born in Clontarf and wrote it in London. The novel’s geography is Transylvanian, its imagination is Irish Gothic.
What is the shortest book here?
A Modest Proposal, at under 5,000 words, followed by The Happy Prince and Other Tales.

Part of all themed reading lists. Nearby shelves: Russian Classics · French Classics · American Classics · authors A–Z · word counts and reading times.