Books by James Stephens

In IRISH FAIRY TALES James Stephens masterfully retells ten Irish legends. The writing is crisp, humorous, and accessible. While reading this book you'll be convinced that you are actually visiting a long lost island of Ireland filled with magic, fairies, and heroes. Lavishly and beautifully illustrated.

Irish Fairy Tales is a selection of mythical stories highlighting themes of love, duty and deception in the magical setting of ancient and medieval Ireland. Each narrative presents internal and external conflicts that test the moral code of its leading characters.James Stephens explores Ireland's cherished history though the eyes of fabled hunters, soldiers, kings and queens. Many stories feature the Fianna, a group of tribal warriors, and their legendary leader, Fionn mac Cumhaill. Other tales include "The Wooing of Becfola," "Becuma of the White Skin" and "Mongan's Frenzy." It's a marvelous display of culture and tradition that balances morality with adventure.With colorful prose and larger than life characters, Irish Fairy Tales delves into the Fenian Cycle-a prominent part of both Irish and Scottish mythology. This spirited retelling captivates readers pulling them into a world of wonder and mystery. It's one of Stephens' most successful works and has been a literary staple for generations. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Irish Fairy Tales is both modern and readable.

The Crock of Gold (1912), one of three original novels by James Stephens, is a work only a master of fiction and folklore could imagine. Taking up the major philosophical and psychological concerns of the early-twentieth century--over a decade before works by T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, among others, would cement literary Modernism's place in history--Stephens' novel is a groundbreaking and important work. The text centers on the Philosopher and his wife, the Thin Woman, who undergo a series of journeys and harrowing trials. Faced with danger both human and divine, the two characters are forced to weather the winds of change in order to change themselves. Divided into six books, The Crock of Gold--no doubt inspired by the Irish oral tradition of storytelling--follows the Philosopher's quest to save the most beautiful woman in the world; his encounter with the gods who have captured her; his return home and arrest for murder (he has been framed by leprechauns incensed at the loss of their crock of gold); and finally, the Thin Woman's quest to find the fabled Three Infinites. James Stephens' The Crock of Gold is perhaps unparalleled in its ability to weave together ancient narrative techniques, mythological sources, and such dominant themes of its day as gender equality and humanity's quest for self-understanding beyond the traditional boundaries of faith and religion. It is also a darkly comic novel, full of ironic political commentary and suspiciously human conversations situated within the animal world. Most popular of Stephens' works, The Crock of Gold conceals in its humorous, irreverent outlook a deeply serious, ultimately reverent love for the human soul--unsurprising for an author whose life was marked with difficulty from the very beginning. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this new edition of James Stephens' The Crock of Gold is a classic of Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.

Irish Fairy Tales is a selection of mythical stories highlighting themes of love, duty and deception in the magical setting of ancient and medieval Ireland. Each narrative presents internal and external conflicts that test the moral code of its leading characters.James Stephens explores Ireland's cherished history though the eyes of fabled hunters, soldiers, kings and queens. Many stories feature the Fianna, a group of tribal warriors, and their legendary leader, Fionn mac Cumhaill. Other tales include "The Wooing of Becfola," "Becuma of the White Skin" and "Mongan's Frenzy." It's a marvelous display of culture and tradition that balances morality with adventure.With colorful prose and larger than life characters, Irish Fairy Tales delves into the Fenian Cycle-a prominent part of both Irish and Scottish mythology. This spirited retelling captivates readers pulling them into a world of wonder and mystery. It's one of Stephens' most successful works and has been a literary staple for generations. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Irish Fairy Tales is both modern and readable.

This book is a result of an effort made by us towards making a contribution to the preservation and repair of original classic literature.In an attempt to preserve, improve and recreate the original content, we have worked towards:1. Type-setting & Reformatting: The complete work has been re-designed via professional layout, formatting and type-setting tools to re-create the same edition with rich typography, graphics, high quality images, and table elements, giving our readers the feel of holding a 'fresh and newly' reprinted and/or revised edition, as opposed to other scanned & printed (Optical Character Recognition - OCR) reproductions.2. Correction of imperfections: As the work was re-created from the scratch, therefore, it was vetted to rectify certain conventional norms with regard to typographical mistakes, hyphenations, punctuations, blurred images, missing content/pages, and/or other related subject matters, upon our consideration. Every attempt was made to rectify the imperfections related to omitted constructs in the original edition via other references. However, a few of such imperfections which could not be rectified due to intentional\unintentional omission of content in the original edition, were inherited and preserved from the original work to maintain the authenticity and construct, relevant to the work.We believe that this work holds historical, cultural and/or intellectual importance in the literary works community, therefore despite the oddities, we accounted the work for print as a part of our continuing effort towards preservation of literary work and our contribution towards the development of the society as a whole, driven by our beliefs. We are grateful to our readers for putting their faith in us and accepting our imperfections with regard to preservation of the historical content. HAPPY READING!

James Stephens' "Irish Fairy Tales", with Arthur Rackham's twenty-five original illustrations, twelve in full-color, brings to vivid life the exciting days of ancient Ireland when Conn of the Hundred Battles was High King at Tara and the great Fionn mac Uail led the Fianna against the enemies of Ireland. *** Fionn mac Uail was a hunter-warrior of Irish mythology (appearing also in the mythologies of Scotland and the Isle of Man). The stories of Fionn and his followers, the Fianna, form the Fenian cycle or Fiannaidheacht. *** Fionn was the son of Uail, leader of the Fianna, and Muirne, daughter of the druid Tadg mac Nuadat who lived on the hill of Almu in County Kildare. From this beginning Fionn becomes the greatest warrior in Irish mythology. *** Filled with adventure, humor, magic, and romance, Irish Fairy Tales was hailed as one of the great fairy tale classics when it was first published in 1920. Even today it appeals greatly to readers of all ages. *** This volume includes the ten tales: "The Story of Tuan Mac Cairill," "The Boyhood of Fionn," "The Birth of Bran," "Oisin's Mother," "The Wooing of Becfola," "The Little Brawl at Allen," "The Carl of the Drab Coat," "The Enchanted Cave of Cesh Corran," "Becuma of the White Skin," and "Mongan's Frenzy."* * * * Check our other Children's, Juvenile, and Adult books at www.FlyingChipmunkPublishing.com, or Like us on Facebook for our latest releases.

Truly unique, it is a mixture of philosophy, Irish folklore and the battle of the sexes all with charm, humour and good grace. The Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca have their pot of gold stolen and for revenge kidnap the Philosophers' children Seamus and Brigid which sets into motion a series of events involving Angus Og, the Thin Woman of Inis Magrath, the fairy folk of the Shee, and the wise and profound musings of all involved. It all rotates around the astonishing story of what happens when Pan shows up in Ireland, what Angus Og does about it, and what becomes of the Daughter of Murrachu who gets caught in between them. A mad-cap quest ensues as fairies, leprechauns and a philosopher being hunted by the police all get involved in the antics of the two gods. "A really wonderful and unique book"

'In the centre of the pine wood called Coilla Doraca there lived not long ago two Philosophers. They were wiser than anything else in the world except the Salmon who lies in the pool of Glyn Cagny into which the nuts of knowledge fall from the hazel bush on its bank. He, of course, is the most profound of living creatures, but the two Philosophers are next to him in wisdom . . . ' THE CROCK OF GOLD is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest novels in the Irish comic tradition. Fantasy, satire and delicious humour propel the magical narrative through a world peopled by policemen, philosophers, tinkers and leprechauns. Yet, the intent of it is all is serious. Or is it? Delve into this mystical fairytale world and rediscover a classic by a great author of the past.