Faustus Kelly. A Play in Three Acts by Myles Na gCopaleen. Dublin: Cahill. 1943. First Edition. Pp, 123. Publisher’s pale orange card wrappers, title printed in dark blue to upper cover and spine. Wrappers lightly age toned, foxing to endpapers, contents in bright & clean throughout.

One of only 250 copies published.

Faustus Kelly, a three act play about the devil and Irish local politics, is reminiscent of Gogol’s The Government Inspector, with its farcical elements and its atmosphere of provincialism. It was not very successful and is regarded as a failure by some critics but it contains some laugh-out-loud dialogue, as when the gombeen men of the council venture into discussions of world politics without ever leaving their own disputes far behind: ‘I believe that man Stalin is a black Protestant.’ He looks like an Orangeman to me.’ Faustus Kelly was first was first produced in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on the 25th January 1943. It met with a disappoint reception and ran for only two weeks.