This text is a comprehensive study of the ascendancy novel from Maria Edgeworth's ""Castle Rackrent"" (1800) to contemporary reinventions of the form. The author argues that Irish fiction needs to be rescued from the critical assumptions which underlie attacks on Yeats and the Literary Revival.

This volume is a comprehensive study of the ascendancy novel from Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent (1800) through contemporary reinventions of the form. Kreilkamp argues that Irish fiction needs to be rescued from the critical assumptions underlying attacks on the historical mythologies of Yeats and the Literary Revival.