97:. Relationships between her and her parents were cold and she states that she had no fun in her life as a child. Her own passion for hunting and horses was born out of her need for fun and enjoyment. Reading did not feature much in her family, and, although her mother wrote poetry, it was of a sentimental nature, "suitable to a woman of her class". Keane claimed she had never set out to be a writer, but at seventeen she was bedbound due to suspected
142:, and like Austen's, her ability lay in her talent for creating characters. This, with her wit and astute sense of what lay beneath the surface of people's actions, enabled her to depict the world of the big houses of Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s. She "captured her class in all its vicious snobbery and genteel racism". She used her married name for her later novels, several of which (including
109:. She wrote under the pseudonym "M. J. Farrell", a name over a pub that she had seen on her return from hunting. She explained writing anonymously because "for a woman to read a book, let alone write one was viewed with alarm: I would have been banned from every respectable house in Co. Carlow."
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Reviewers were generally appreciative of Keane's novels. Her mix of comic wit and poetic sensibility was called delightful. Some reviewers recoiled at the "indecent" subject of
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https://web.archive.org/web/20071011230325/http://www.virago.co.uk/author_results.asp?TAG=&CID=&PGE=&LANG=EN&ref=e2007030614553308&SF1=data&ST1=profile
154:) have been adapted for television. Between 1928 and 1956, she wrote 11 novels, and some of her earlier plays, under the pseudonym "M. J. Farrell". She was a member of
192:, a place she knew well, and lived there with her two daughters. She died on 22 April 1996 in her Cliffside home in Ardmore. She was 91. She is buried beside the
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116:. Here she befriended the two children of the house, Sylvia and John Perry. She later collaborated with John in writing a number of plays. Among them was
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and refused to go to boarding school in
England as her siblings had done. She was educated by her mother, governesses, and at a boarding school in
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223:, who identified strongly with Keane after reading it, insisted on editing it herself, later calling the book "mindblowingly clever."
61:, and was a fanatic for horses and hunting; her mother, Agnes Shakespeare Higginson (1864–1955), a poet who wrote under the pseudonym
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came out under her own name; the manuscript, which had languished in a drawer for many years, was lent to a visitor, the actress
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Although the real identity of M. J. Farrell had long since become known in Irish and
English literary circles, it was not until
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158:. Her husband died suddenly in 1946, and, following the failure of a play, she published nothing for twenty years. In 1981
188:. The couple went on to have two daughters, Sally and Virginia. After the death of her husband in 1946, Molly moved to
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may well become "a classic among
English Novels". It connected her in a personal way with the famous London editor,
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It was through the Perry family that Molly met Bobby Keane, whom she married in 1938. He belonged to a
Waterford
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In her teenage years, she spent much of her time in the Perry household in
Woodruff,
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that Keane felt secure in publishing under her own name. After the publication of
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Kierstead, Mary D. (13 October 1986). "Profiles: A great old breakerawayer".
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53:. Her father, Walter Clarmont Skrine (died 1930), was from a
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373:(1949) (on which the novel was later based; and adapted as
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Information For
Writers and Producers of Radio Drama
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that year. She and
Gielgud became lifelong friends.
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Keane was born Mary Nesta Skrine in Ryston
Cottage,
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65:, was daughter of Charles Henry Higginson (son of
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73:from 1851 to 1857), a colonial administrator in
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640:. Vol. 62, no. 34. pp. 97–112.
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359:(1938) with John Perry. Filmed in 1941
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255:The Knight of Cheerful Countenance
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603:Athill, Diana (21 January 2017).
499:by Ann Morrow, Grafton Books 1990
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24:(20 July 1904 – 22 April 1996),
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510:"David Higham Client Entry"
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321:Novels as "Molly Keane":
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176:Personal life and death
696:Irish women novelists
546:on 25 September 2005
309:Loving Without Tears
646:Molly Keane: a life
516:on 1 September 2006
303:Two Days in Aragon
279:Conversation Piece
242:, were re-issued.
236:Conversation Piece
213:The New York Times
200:Critical reception
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572:on 27 August 2006
566:"About the prize"
381:Dazzling Prospect
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194:Church of Ireland
31:Mary Nesta Skrine
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591:Irish Times
440:18 February
261:Young Entry
240:Rising Tide
140:Jane Austen
22:Molly Keane
680:Categories
615:2 February
388:References
344:Queen Lear
291:Full House
45:Early life
75:Mauritius
37:, was an
611:. London
128:West End
83:Bunclody
55:Somerset
156:Aosdána
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383:(1961)
367:(1941)
336:(1983)
330:(1981)
317:(1952)
311:(1951)
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299:(1937)
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281:(1932)
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134:Career
650:ISBN
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442:2017
238:and
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