Moore, George Augustus

Moore, George Augustus (1852-1933), Irish novelist, poet, and playwright, born in County Mayo. While studying art in Paris, he wrote two volumes of verse, Flowers of Passion (1878) and Pagan Poems (1882). Moore's first important books were the novels A Modern Lover (1883) and A Mummer's Wife (1885), in which, influenced by the French naturalistic novelists Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola, he challenged the conventions of the English Victorian novel. Moore's literary reputation was established with his novel of English servant life, Esther Waters (1894). He was a co-founder of the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899, which eventually became the Abbey Theatre. Moore then stayed in Ireland until 1911, wrote two plays for the fledgling theatre company, and collaborated with William Butler Yeats on other works. After 1911 Moore lived mainly in London and travelled to Palestine to gather material for a novel on the life of Jesus, The Brook Kerith (1916).

Among his other historical novels, written in a concise poetic style, are Evelyn Innes (1898), Sister Teresa (1901), The Lake (1905), Héloïse and Abélard (1921), and Aphrodite in Aulis (1931). He also wrote short stories, and his dramas include The Coming of Gabrielle (1920) and The Making of an Immortal (1928).

Moore was noted for his autobiographical Confessions of a Young Man (1888), Memoirs of My Dead Life (1905), and Hail and Farewell (1911-1914), a memoir of his years at the Abbey Theatre.