Introduction John Wilson Foster; 1. The novel before 1800 Aileen Douglas; 2. The national tale and allied genres, 1770s–1840 Miranda Burgess; 3. The novel of the big house Vera Kreilkamp; 4. The Gothic novel Siobhan Kilfeather; 5. Catholics and fiction during the Union (1801–1922) James H. Murphy; 6. Irish modernisms, 1880–1930 Adrian Frazier; 7. James Joyce Bruce Stewart; 8. Region, realism, and reaction, 1922–72 Norman Vance; 9. The novel in Irish Alan Titley; 10. Women novelists, 1930s–1960s Ann Owens Weekes; 11. Two post-modern novelists: Samuel Beckett and Flann O'Brien Terence Brown; 12. Life writing in the twentieth century Elizabeth Grubgeld; 13. The novel and the Northern Troubles Elmer Kennedy-Andrews; 14. Contemporary Irish fiction Eve Patten.