Without My Cloak (Virago Modern Classics)

By Kate O'Brien

Book Overview

When Anthony Considine creeps into Mellick town with a stolen horse in 1789, it sets the destiny of his family for decades to come. By the 1850s, through thrift and hard work, his son Honest John has made the Considines a leading Mellick family. In turn, his son Anthony builds a fine house in the country for his wife and childrenmost especially for his adored son Dennis. Little does he know that when Dennis grows up he will threaten the toil of generations with his love for a peasant girl. A stirring family saga of divided loyalties and individual freedom; of matches made and lost; and of the constraints of religion and family pride."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140161554
• ISBN13: 9780140161557
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 469 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.0" x 1.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Hawthornden Prize winner

I recently found a list of the winners of the Hawthornden prize, which is awarded annually to an English writer "for the best work of imaginative literature." This book, by Kate O'Brien (1897-1974), won the prize for 1931. Since most of the Hawthornden prizewinners I have read (only 9 so far) have been good reading, I decided to read this. On balance it tells an interesting story and holds one's attention well. It is laid in Ireland of the 1870s and concerns an upper-class Irish Catholic family, the "proper" members of which are portrayed in a somewhat unfavorable light. The "rebel" members of the family get most of the attention in the book, as I suppose one would expect in a novel. I do not regret reading the book, and would read more by Kate O'Brien if I ran across such.