In a volume that has become a standard text in Irish studies, editors Maureen O'Rourke Murphy and James MacKillop survey thirteen centuries of Irish literature, including old Irish epic and Iyric poetry, Irish folksongs and a selection of nineteenth-century prose and poetry. For each author the editors provide a biographical sketch, a brief discussion of how his or her selections relate to a larger body of work, and a selected bibliography. In addition, this new volume also includes a larger sampling of women writers.