author
Seumas O'Brien
b. 1880
An Irish-born writer and sculptor, he brought a playful, offbeat spirit to early 20th-century stories and stage works. His writing ranges from comic Irish plays to fables with a quirky, imaginative edge.
2 Audiobooks
Duty, and Other Irish Comedies
by Seumas O'Brien
The Whale and the Grasshopper, and Other Fables
by Seumas O'Brien
About the author
Born James O'Brien on April 26, 1880, Seumas O'Brien was an Irish-American sculptor, art instructor, and writer. Available library and archival records describe him as a poet, fabulist, dramatist, novelist, sculptor, and painter, showing how comfortably he moved between visual art and literature.
He was born in Ireland and emigrated to the United States in 1913. His surviving body of work includes comic plays such as Duty, and Other Irish Comedies and the unusual collection The Whale and the Grasshopper: And Other Fables, which suggests a taste for humor, performance, and inventive storytelling.
Some basic biographical details are easier to confirm than a full life story, so much of his career remains only lightly documented in the sources available here. Even so, the picture that emerges is of a versatile artist who worked across several forms and left behind writing that still attracts readers of overlooked Irish literature.