Out of print

'Conquering England'
Ireland in Victorian London
Fintan Cullen and R.F. Foster
Foreword by Fiona Shaw

'England had conquered Ireland, so there was nothing for it but to come over and conquer England.'
G.B. Shaw

Ireland's artistic giants - Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats and G.B. Shaw - made their name in London in the nineteenth century. They were part of a generation of men and women who came to the city to find fame and fortune on an international stage. Yet by the turn of the twentieth century such men and women including theatrical impresario Bram Stoker, history painter Daniel Maclise, charismatic politician Charles Stewart Parnell and the colourful journalist T.P. O'Connor were being drawn back to an Ireland undergoing political radicalisation and cultural renaissance.

This book explores through these influential individuals, the changing perspectives on Ireland that developed during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Published to accompany an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London from 9 March to 19 June 2005.

Fintan Cullen is Professor of Art History at the University of Nottingham and is the author of Visual Politics: The Representation of Ireland 1750-1930, Sources in Irish Art: A Reader and The Irish Face: Redefining the Irish Portrait published by the National Portrait Gallery.

R.F. Foster is Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of Hertford College. He has written widely on Irish history, society and politics in the modern period, as well as on Victorian high politics and culture. His second volume of the authorised biography of W.B. Yeats was published in 2003 to great acclaim.

240 x 180mm, 80 pages
50 illustrations
ISBN 1 85514 348 8
£12.99 (paperback)
Special Gallery price: £10.99
Published March 2005

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All images and text are subject to copyright protection. 22 November 2008