Molly Keane

Molly Keane was born in County Kildare into 'a rather serious Hunting and Fishing Church-going family' and was sketchily educated by governesses. She wrote her first novel, The Knight of Cheerful Countenance, when she was seventeen under the pseudonym M. J. Farrell. Between 1928 and 1961, she published ten novels and several plays under this pen name in which she brought acuteness and good-tempered satire as well as affection to her portrayals of the ramshackle Anglo-Irish way of life. In 1981, Good Behaviour was reissued under her own name and triggered a revival of interest in and respect for her work. Molly Keane died in 1996.