Author Description

Under many pen-names, including that of Flann O'Brien, Brian O'Nolan was a legend among Irish writers, creating his famous novel "At Swim-Two-Birds" while still a student, contributing a column to the "Irish Times" for a quarter of a century, and in the last days of his life making a spectacular return as a novelist. Even after his death, he had a surprise in store, for he left behind what many now consider to be his masterpiece, "The Third Policeman".;Drawing on extensive personal material which has never been seen before, and with the full co-operation of Evelyn O'Nolan, the writer's widow, the authors unravel some of the mystery surrounding the man described by James Joyce as "a real writer, with the true comic spirit".;The book is illustrated with more than 150 photographs, paintings, drawings and facsimile manuscripts. Peter Costello is a literary historian and biographer who lives in Dublin and has published books on James Joyce and Jules Verne. Peter van de Kamp is an authority on W.B.Yeats.