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 Poor Mouth

by Flann O'Brien

Published 19 November 1973

The classic satire from the renowned comic and acclaimed author of `At Swim-Two-Birds' - Flann O'Brien.

Flann O'Brien's gloriously wicked satire of the traditional Irish peasant novel, The Poor Mouth tells the shamelessly ironic story of Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in the West of Ireland `on a terrible winter's night'.

A hymn to the world of potatoes, rain and `excellent poverty', this cruelly funny assault on the fashionable Gaelic Revival of the day brought the wrath of the custodians of national sentiment upon O'Brien's head for many years thereafter.