The Untilled Field

George Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. He came from a Roman Catholic landed family and originally wanted to be a painter studying in Paris in the 1870's. As a naturalistic writer, he was among the first English-language authors to study the French realists, and was particularly influenced by the works of Émile Zola. Because of his willingness to tackle such issues as prostitution, extramarital sex and lesbianism, his novels were met with disapproval but eventually as public taste changed they became accepted. The Untilled Field deals with themes of clerical interference in the daily lives of the Irish peasantry, and of the issue of emigration. The story was originally written for translation into Irish, in order to serve as a model for other writers working in the language.

George Augustus Moore (24 February 1852 – 21 January 1933) was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s. There, he befriended many of the leading French artists and writers of the day. As a naturalistic writer, he was amongst the first English-language authors to absorb the lessons of the French realists, and was particularly influenced by the works of Émile Zola. His writings influenced James Joyce, according to the literary critic and biographer Richard Ellmann, and, although Moore's work is sometimes seen as outside the mainstream of both Irish and British literature, he is as often regarded as the first great modern Irish novelist.