Amanda McKittrick Ros

"Amanda is the most perfect instrument for measuring the sense of humour. Alert and quick-witted people accept her at once: those whom she leaves entirely unmoved are invariably dull and unimaginative. She is for people who do always expect reason, who are ready to enter her world without disputation and to accept her magnificent incongruities." From 'O Rare Amanda', p.45

I love the one below (a short explanation of the context first): (Sir John has taken his son to enrol at College. He spends the night at the school and has a long, emotional discussion with his old friend, School President O'Sullivan. President O'Sullivan worked with Oscar Otwell at the time his elopement with Irene 7 or 8 years before, and provides John with the first confirmation that Irene took off with Oscar. It seems that Sir John had always been holding out hope that Irene would return to him, but now, on his return home, Sir John calls in the lawyers.)

Just wondering if anyone can tell me the answer to this: was the book that T.S. Mercer published, reprinted in its [i]entirety[/i] in 'Great Irish Humourous Stories'? Apparently many different versions of the manuscript (16?) are bound and stored in Belfast Public Library. Can anyone tell me how far Ros got with the story?

You know, something I find kind of weird on this forum is that there have been something like 18000 views of the various AMR threads, but to date only 15 replies. Why the reticence? Come out of the closet Amanda fans! Say it loud, say "I'm into this stuff!" So I'm going to suggest a challenge: who out there is prepared to write a quick response to one of the following questions? 1) According to writer Mario Vargas Llosa, 'literature is fire, . . . it means non-conformity and rebellion'. What is rebellious or non-conformist about an AMR novel or novels you have read?

Just wondering how people out there first came across Amanda McKittrick Ros? I read a few excerpts in Stephen Pile's book Heroic Failures (or perhaps it was the sequel, More Heroic Failures) and was highly intrigued, but had little information until coming across this site 2 or 3 (4?) years ago. Now I'm hooked. How did you first encounter AMR?

A tribute to Amanda McKittrick Ros is one of the events at the current "Celebrate Literary Belfast" festival. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/18/nauthor18.xml http://www.celebrateliterarybelfast.com/

Hi Alfred, just wondering whether there's any chance you could post up WMR Quick's legendary illustrations from Nonesuch's edition of Irene Iddlesleigh? I'm not sure whether there would be copyright issues around this. I only have the US edition - which is a beautiful edition in its own right but I would love to see the pictures. Also, apologies for making several posts under the mysterious pseudonym 'Guest'. It was me in all those replies to the previous thread.

I was just wondering whether anyone had been to visit the Amanda McKittrick Ros collection at the Belfast library. I'm planning to make a special trip there next time I'm in Europe, but it's a long way to go and I don't know how what the access etc is REALLY like. If anyone has any helpful advice or comments, they would be greatly appreciated.

Nigel Burwood of [url=http://www.anyamountofbooks.com]Any Amount of Books[/url] writes to tell me that his news page currently includes a list of terms used by Amanda Ros to designate her critics, at [url]http://www.anyamountofbooks.com/news.html[/url]. At the time of posting the book from which this list is taken, Bayonets of Bastard Sheen, is being offered by Nigel for sale. Further details at [url]http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/ListingDetails?bi=667376662[/url].