Life
1909-?; b. Dublin, dg. of priv. sec. to Viceroy Lord Aberdeen; ed. at home in Magheramena Castle, Co. Fermanagh, and later in Dublin; family
moved to Bournemouth in 1921, though her parents were both ‘strong nationalists’ [IF]; she lived in Dorset; other novels incl. Relentless and The Maiden, and A Robin Redbreast in a Cage, a post-war novel; winner of Femme-Vie Heureuse award of the Institut Française for women writers. IF2
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Commentary
J. S. Crone (Irish Book Lover, 1928): ‘Hanging Johnny (Murray) is one of the shortest and most original works of fiction I have ever read. There are pract-ically only three characters: the hangman, his wife, and a half-mad priest, and the attention is gripped in the first paragraph, and held entralled [sic] to the last. Yet I am told the author, Myrtle Johnson, is only eighteen years old. If this be so, she is a genius.’ (J. S. Crone, ‘Sgéala ó Chathair na gCeó’, in The Irish Book Lover, Jan . & Feb. 1928 [Vol. XVI], p.2f.) (Crone gives notice of the Femme Vie Heureuse award is in IBL, July-Dec. 1928.)
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References
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. 2] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), lists Hanging Johnny (London: Murray 1927), 309pp. [about J. Cregan, hangman; set in Dublin slums, the atmosphere is ‘un-Irish’]; Laleen and Other Stories (London: Murray 1937), 324pp., [sixteen stories, some Irish; some fantasy; some seamy, with ‘less effective results’], which got positive reviews in Irish Book Lover. The Rising (London: Murray 1939), 339pp. is about 1867, told from a nationalist standpoint, with a prologue delineating post-Famine misery of the people; Myles Darragh escapes to America and vows to return, fights in the Civil War, and joins the Fenians; the eventual rising is ill-planned and abortive].
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