Harper Perennial Modern Classics

3 total works

The Third Policeman

by Flann O'Brien

Published September 1967

A masterpiece of black humour from the renown comic and acclaimed author of ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ – Flann O’Brien.

A thriller, a hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender, brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle, and a chilling fable of unending guilt, ‘The Third Policeman’ is comparable only to ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as an allegory of the absurd.

Distinguished by endless comic invention and its delicate balancing of logic and fantasy, ‘The Third Policeman’ is unique in the English language.

Dalkey Archive

by Flann O'Brien

Published December 1964

Considered by the author to be almost a work of science fiction, the book includes among its characters St Augustine, James Joyce and a man who is in danger of turning into a bicycle. There is also the first published portrait of the mad scientist, who was later to achieve fame as de Selby.

The Best of Myles

by Flann O'Brien

Published 31 March 1983

The Best of Myles brings together the best of Flann O'Brien's newspaper column "Cruiskeen Lawn," written over a nearly thirty-year period. Covering such subjects as plumbers, the justice system, and improbable inventions, O'Brien (whose real name was Brian O'Nolan, though his newspaper pseudonym was Myles na Gopaleen) is replete with zany humor and biting satire directed at the Irish and their preoccupations. Most of all, however, The Best of Myles displays O'Brien's unique mastery of language and style.