Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage is, as Robert Macfarlane says in his introduction, 'one of the most sustained, intensive and imaginative studies of a place that has ever been carried out'. That place is one of the most mysterious and oldest inhabited landscapes in the world, the islands of Aran off the west coast of Ireland. Tim Robinson's epic exploration of the desolate, storm-lashed, limestone rocks, which have already haunted generations of Irish writers, takes the form of a clockwise journey around the coast. Every cliff, inlet and headland reveals layers of myth and historical memory, and Robinson makes beautifully crafted observations about the habits of birds, plants and the humans who lived there and endured, leaving records in stone - on the walls, cairns and ancient forts - in story and in oral tradition.

First published in 1892, Grania is the story of a fisherman’s daughter from the Islands of Aran, off the coast of Galway. Grania O’Malley’s life is circumscribed by family duty and her destiny as wife to her feckless fiancé, Murdough Blake. When she realises her wants her only for her money and property, Grania rejects him in favour of heroism, although with tragic consequences. Through complex and skilled characterisation, Lawless evokes a vivid picture of island life, with its unforgiving landscape and grinding poverty. Using a unique poetic style, the author conveys both humour and a sense of Gaelic identity, inextricably linked with this remarkable community. Algernon Swinburne described Grania as “one of the most exquisite and perfect works in the language” and Mrs Humphry Ward praised its “breath of sensitive humanity”. This scholarly edition, the first for twenty-five years, brings Emily Lawless’s extraordinary novel to a new audience. This edition includes: critical introduction by Michael O’Flynn extensive explanatory footnotes selection of contemporary reviews selection of essays, poems and letters by Emily Lawless contextual material on the New Woman; marriage; motherhood; evolution; and literature and the novel