MR DOOLEY IN PEACE & WAR (Prairie State Books)

Dunne, Finley Peter

ISBN 10: 0252060407 / ISBN 13: 9780252060403

Published by University of Illinois Press, 1988

About this Item

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!

Seller Inventory # S_466522137

Bibliographic Details

• Title: MR DOOLEY IN PEACE & WAR (Prairie State Books)
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252060407
• ISBN 13: 9780252060403
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Welcome to Mr. Dooley's place, a neighborhood saloon in the working-class community of Bridgeport, located on Chicago's near southwest side. Here matters of the gravest import are perused with homespun philosophy and good cheer. Covering the waterfront from Mack's (President McKinley's) foreign policies and political appointments to the Alaskan gold rush and juvenile delinquency, Martin T. Dooley holds forth from behind the bar, benevolently dispensing equal portions of wisdom and comical misunderstanding. As Charlie McCarthy is to Edgar Bergen, so is Martin T. Dooley to newspaper humorist Finley Peter Dunne. "Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War", originally published in 1898, collects brief, humorous pieces Dunne wrote for the "Chicago Evening Post" and the "Chicago Journal". In an Irish-American dialect as thick as the foam on a pint of stout, Mr. Dooley and his friends discuss the military "sthrateejy" for American action in Cuba, "iliction" day shenanigans, Queen Victoria's jubilee, the "new woman," and the strange American sport of football, in which a player puts "a pair iv matthresses on his legs, a pillow behind, [and] a mask over his nose" and tries to kill his fellow men. Through his tall tales and speculations, Mr. Dooley reveals the pleasure and pain of being Irish in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century. Clothed in the charming hyperbole and mislocution of the unflappable Mr. Dooley, Dunne's incisive social criticism flies unerringly to the target, exposing prejudice, hypocrisy, insensitivity, and plain old-fashioned humbug.

From the Back Cover

Finley Peter Dunne was the greatest American newspaper humorist of his time. His turn-of-the-century dialect essays for the Chicago Evening Post and the Chicago Journal featured the fictional Mr. Dooley and the working-class community of Bridgeport, located on Chicago's near southwest side. Originally published in 1898, Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War was the first collection of Dunne's popular essays.