A Time Outworn by Val Mulkerns
ISBN 978-1-9162975-1-7 / 244 pages / €15.00 / Pub date: 14 Feb 2025
Valentine’s Day 2025 marks the centenary of the birth of Irish writer Val Mulkerns. To celebrate, 451 Editions brings out a special edition of her widely-acclaimed first novel, A Time Outworn. Originally published by Chatto and Windus in 1951, it’s a coming of age novel set in Ireland just after the Second World War.
When Maeve Cusack falls short of the marks required for a university scholarship, her immediate prospects are unclear, complicated by her relationship with the bookish young Diarmuid. An intelligent and fiercely independent soul, Maeve’s decisions are life-changing and highly untypical for the times. As much a portrait of post-war Irish society as of its distinctive heroine, it’s a compelling fiction debut.
The New York Times praised it as “written in a cool and lovely prose”. The Irish Times called it “a sensitive, intelligent first novel”.
Carlo Gébler, in his foreword to the new edition, writes: “There are few if any equivalent Irish novels written and published in the period with the breadth of interests in all senses that are on display in A Time Outworn.”
The official publication date will be February 14 2025, to celebrate the centenary of Val Mulkerns’s birth on February 14 1925. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for information or a review copy.
For more about the author, see: www.Valmulkerns.com