About the Author

J. G. FARRELL (1935-1979) was an Anglo-Irish novelist who grew up in England and Ireland. At the age of forty-four he was hit by a wave while fishing on the Irish coast and was washed out to sea.
 
JOHN SUTHERLAND is the author of seventeen books on literature and language, a regular columnist for The Guardian, and an emeritus professor at University College, London.
 
Introduction by John Sutherland