Knocknagow or The Homes of Tipperary. Twenty-Ninth Edition. Dublin: Duffy, 1945. Quarter cloth boards, lettered in black, in publisher’s cream pictorial dust jacket Light fading to head of cloth spine, jacket frayed along edges. A nice copy.

‘Knocknagow’ first published in 1879 is considered by many as one of the greatest of Irish novels. It consists of a series of pictures of life in a village in Co. Tipperary so true to nature that they could not have been written but by one who knew and loved the people. It was reprinted many times and sold in its thousands.

Charles Kickham – patriot, novelist, and poet – was born at Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary in 1825. He was the son of John Kickham, a wealthy draper of Mullinahone, and Anne O’Mahony, lovingly described in his novel ‘Sally Cavanagh,’ a kinswoman of the Fenian chief, John O’Mahony.