🎯 Where Should I Start?
ⓘ About Edna O'Brien
Edna O’Brien is an Irish novelist, screenwriter, and short story author from Ireland. She was born in County Clare Ireland in 1930 and spent most of her childhood in the small town of Twamgraney. She describes her hometown as a small bigoted, fervid and enclosed small village that she hated. While she loved reading and was writing by the time she was eight years old, she never got an opportunity to write until the family moved to London. In O’Brien’s small village, literature was taboo and most of the books that she got to read as a child were loaned by the page. Her parents never encouraged her to pursue a career in writing as her father followed in the footsteps of profligate Irishmen, while her mother yearned for her younger days when she was a maid in Brooklyn.
All Book Series by Edna O'Brien
Girls in Their Married Bliss
Latest in the series · book 3 of 3 · published 1964
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
Series opener · book 1 of 28 · published 1955 Anthology · Flannery O'Connor
Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine
Book 7 of 28 · published 1998 Anthology · Thom Jones
The Shielding of Mrs Forbes
Book 9 of 28 · published 2011 Anthology · Alan Bennett
The Cheater's Guide to Love
Book 10 of 28 · published 2012 Anthology · Junot Díaz
Come Rain or Come Shine
Book 14 of 28 · published 2019 Anthology · Kazuo Ishiguro
Dante and the Lobster
Book 16 of 28 · published 2019 Anthology · Samuel Beckett
The Lydia Steptoe Stories
Book 19 of 28 · published 2019 Anthology · Djuna Barnes
Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom
Book 20 of 28 · published 2019 Anthology · Sylvia Plath
The Forester's Daughter
Book 23 of 28 · published 2019 Anthology · Claire Keegan
Three Types of Solitude
Book 24 of 28 · published 2019 Anthology · Brian W. Aldiss
Intruders
Latest in the series · book 28 of 28 · published 2019 Anthology · Adrian Tomine
Abraham Lincoln
Series opener · book 1 of 32 · published 1960 Anthology · Thomas Keneally
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life
Book 12 of 32 · published 2000 Anthology · Sherwin B. Nuland
Simone Weil
Book 16 of 32 · published 2001 Anthology · Francine du Plessix Gray
Andy Warhol: A Biography
Book 17 of 32 · published 2001 Anthology · Wayne Koestenbaum
Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Life
Book 18 of 32 · published 2001 Anthology · Marshall Frady
Winston Churchill: A Life
Book 20 of 32 · published 2002 Anthology · John Keegan
Saint Therese of Lisieux
Book 24 of 32 · published 2003 Anthology · Kathryn Harrison
Frank Lloyd Wright: A Life
Book 26 of 32 · published 2004 Anthology · Ada Louise Huxtable
George Herbert Walker Bush
Book 27 of 32 · published 2004 Anthology · Tom Wicker
Branch Rickey: A Life
Latest in the series · book 32 of 32 · published 2011 Anthology · Jimmy Breslin
? Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Edna O'Brien?
Edna O'Brien is an Irish novelist, screenwriter, and short story author from Ireland. She was born in County Clare Ireland in 1930 and spent most of her childhood in the small town of Twamgraney. She describes her hometown as a small bigoted, fervid and enclosed small village that she hated.
Which Edna O'Brien series should I start with?
The best place to start is The Country Girls Trilogy series, the earliest of Edna O'Brien's multi-book series: it opens with The Country Girls (1960) and runs to 3 books across 1960–1964, ending with Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964).
How many books has Edna O'Brien written?
Edna O'Brien has 133 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1955 and 2022. 80 of them belong to 4 named series — the largest being The Country Girls Trilogy series with 3 books — and 53 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.
In what order should Edna O'Brien's series be read?
Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Edna O'Brien's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are The Country Girls Trilogy (1960–1964, 3 books).
How are Edna O'Brien's books organised into series?
This guide splits Edna O'Brien's 133 books into 4 named series and 53 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: The Country Girls Trilogy (3 books, 1960–1964); Penguin Lives (32 books, 1960–2011); Faber Stories (28 books, 1955–2019); Selected Shorts (17 books, 1993–2012).