Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

Carol Taaffe (Trinity College Dublin)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Paul Delaney (Trinity College Dublin), Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1940

Places

Ireland, Republic of (Eire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Third Policeman has a peculiar, and unfortunate, publication history. In January 1940, Brian O'Nolan (Flann O'Brien) submitted the manuscript to the publishers of his first novel, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939). At Swim was a critical success, but had failed commercially and Longman's were unhappy with the new novel, advising that: “he should become less fantastic and in this new novel he is more so”. More rejections followed. O'Nolan wrote despondently to William Saroyan in September 1940 that: “I got so sick looking at a ragged […] copy of that story I wrote about the policeman that I flew into a frenzy (the Sweeny kind), put it into a box with 2 short stories and sent the whole lot across the sea to Matson &…

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2064 words

Citation: Taaffe, Carol. "The Third Policeman". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 September 2002 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7924, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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