The Letters of Brendan Behan

Edward L. Edmonds is a professor of English at the University of Prince
Edward Island.

For anyone unfamiliar with the name of Brendan Behan, already a legend
in his own lifetime, this book will serve as an excellent autobiography.
It has been well said that “Old letters make new fires burn brighter /
Recalling passions stored for years.” Nowhere is this more apparent
than in Behan’s letters. Writing without the faintest idea they would
ever be made public, he gives full rein to his thoughts, feelings,
hates, and beliefs. He is always intensely personal and outspoken, and
often bluntly colloquial (not for the squeamish!).

Mikhail is to be congratulated on patiently bringing together so many
previously unpublished letters, poems, and extracts from Behan’s early
writings. A helpful biographical chronology precedes the letters, and a
select bibliography supplements them. The explanatory footnotes to the
letters are detailed and most informative. Mikhail also provides a
useful subject-index, expressive of his own wide scholarship.

McGill-Queen’s University Press must be commended, too, for an
immaculate printing, not least of the Gaelic language Behan loved so
well. Eight attractive black-and-white photographs show Behan at his
best.