Leslie Mitchell

He Loathed the Colour Green

Enigma: A New Life of Charles Stewart Parnell

By

Gill & Macmillan 256pp £21.99 order from our bookshop

In the pantheon of Irish patriots, there are many men who can only be described as odd. To call them outsiders is merely charitable. Such men turn their backs on their caste or their religion or both. They invite charges of betrayal and their motives are inscrutable. None was odder than Charles Stewart Parnell. Paul Bew has chosen an appropriate title for his deeply researched biography, for few claimed to know the man. In fact he never ‘had a single intimate friend’.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    Follow Us