author
Donn Byrne
1889–1928
An Irish-born storyteller with a gift for romance, adventure, and atmosphere, he became widely known in the 1920s for novels that mixed old-world charm with vivid emotion. His life was brief, but his fiction left behind a strong sense of Ireland, history, and dramatic human feeling.
3 Audiobooks
Messer Marco Polo
by Donn Byrne
Changeling, and Other Stories
by Donn Byrne
The Wind Bloweth
by Donn Byrne
About the author
Born Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne in New York on November 20, 1889, he was taken back to County Armagh as an infant and grew up in an Irish-speaking environment. Sources agree that this early life in Ireland shaped both his imagination and the strong Irish character of his writing.
He studied at University College Dublin and continued his education in Paris and Leipzig before eventually returning to the United States. Donn Byrne built his reputation as a writer of fiction rather than scholarship, and he became especially associated with romantic, historical, and Irish-themed novels, including Messer Marco Polo and Hangman's House.
His success came in the 1910s and 1920s, when readers responded to the warmth, color, and drama of his storytelling. He died in an automobile accident on June 18, 1928, ending a promising career early, but his books still stand out for their lively style and their deep feeling for Ireland.