Episode 63: The Wild Irish Girl

In keeping with Better Read than Dead’s mission of bringing you literature’s greatest failsons -- and Tristan’s favorite genre of novel, “feckless boob goes on a trip” -- may we present Sydney Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl (1806) and its hero, Horatio M. (We assume he just forgot the rest of his last name.) Horatio is an English aristocrat whose dad exiles him to Ireland in penance for his failsonery, but he soon becomes quite horny for both a harp-playing Irish princess and for Ireland itself, where Horatio learns they do many mind-blowing things -- have picturesque ruins, speak Irish, and grow mustaches. We’re talking gender, the nation, internal colonialism, and more! We read the Oxford edition with notes and introduction by Kathryn Kirkpatrick. For more on Owenson (a nineteenth-century radical!), we recommend Mary Campbell’s biography Lady Morgan: The Life and Times of Sydney Owenson. And for more on the nation, the novel, and imperialism, check out Katie Trumpener’s landmark Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire. Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at [email protected]. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.