In the following essay, Thompson provides an interpretation of “Sister Imelda” and O'Brien's novel The High Road in terms of lesbian desire and female sexuality.

In the following essay, Shumaker applies theorist Julia Kristeva's “myth of the superior woman” to explicate the troubled mother-daughter relationships in several stories by Irish women writers, including O'Brien's “A Rose in the Heart of New York.”

In the following essay, Peggy O'Brien explores the psychology behind Edna O'Brien's literary choices and examines the negative critical commentary on her works.

In the following essay, Gillespie views humor as an integral part of O'Brien's short fiction and situates her within the Irish literary comic tradition.

In the following essay, Shumaker finds parallels in the treatment of women in stories by Mary Lavin and O'Brien, contending that “the disturbing martyrdoms of the heroines created by both writers stem, in part, from Catholic notions of the Madonna.”

In the following essay, Pearce explores the influence of Joyce's seminal short story “The Dead” on O'Brien, Mary Lavin, and Sean O'Faolain, maintaining that these three authors “build upon imagery of snow or fire in their short stories to present unrelievedly pessimistic world visions, far more bitter than Joyce's that demonstrate their permanent loss of hope in a postlapsarian world.”

In the following essay, Shumaker explores O'Brien's and Mary Lavin's use of martyred. Madonna-inspired women characters in their stories.

In the following essay, Haule examines O'Brien's treatment of birth, infancy, childhood, and motherhood in her works.

In the following essay, O'Hara surveys O'Brien's handling of obsessive love in her short stories.

In the following essay, Snow explores the "journey" O'Brien's heroines make "to reclaimed innocence" in her novels.

In the following essay, Pearce examines similarities between the works of O'Brien and James Joyce, in particular focusing upon O'Brien's "Lantern Slides," which Pearce characterizes as a "feminist rewriting" of Joyce's "The Dead."

In the following essay, Malpezzi examines O'Brien's portrayal of the mother-daughter relationship in her story “A Rose in the Heart of New York.”

In the following essay, Carriker analyzes O'Brien's "The Doll," in terms of the author's use of the doll as a means of communicating the abjection of the narrator of the story.

In the following review, Lee offers a mixed evaluation of House of Splendid Isolation.

In the following review, Innes offers a positive appraisal of Down by the River.

The following is L'Heureux's generally laudatory review of House of Splendid Isolation, in which he notes some faults in the novel but asserts that O'Brien's "attempt nonetheless merits praise."

In the following review, Mantel offers a favorable assessment of Down by the River, but faults O'Brien for what she perceives as overly pedantic, elaborate prose and a tendency to exhaustively reiterate issues.

In the following review, Robinson offers a mixed assessment of The High Road.

In the following review, Harris offers a laudatory appraisal of Time and Tide.

In the following review, Hosmer offers a commendatory assessment of Time and Tide.

The following is a mixed assessment of August Is a Wicked Month.

In the following review, Peters surveys the stories in The Fanatic Heart.

In the following review, Craig provides a mixed evaluation of Time and Tide.

In the following review, Bawer offers a largely positive assessment of House of Splendid Isolation, but notes some stylistic weaknesses.

In the following review, Donoghue maintains that A Pagan Place is an "interesting" and "pleasant" novel, but does not "go deep" enough to merit consideration as a significant work of literature.

In the following review, Broderick offers a highly unfavorable assessment of Mother Ireland.

In the following review, Binchy offers a favorable assessment of Tales for the Telling.

There is a body of opinion that has it that Edna O'Brien is overrated as a writer; that her success is due to the sex and Irish blarney in her work, and that any serious criticism of her books is out of place…. If I am daft enough to put my head on the block again, it is because there really is something about the Edna O'Brien phenomenon that is worth defining.

In the following review of Casualties of Peace, Dienstag asserts that O'Brien's "old-fashioned" and clichéd structuring of her novel destroys the effectiveness of her "extraordinary style."

In the following review, the critic provides a largely negative assessment of Night, in which O'Brien is faulted for failing to sustain and build on the "strength and honesty" in her writing.

In the following review, Lanters provides an unfavorable assessment of Lantern Slides.

[In "Arabian Days"] Miss O'Brien picks her way through the debris of progress and the buildings that are like boxes waiting to be filled with the gifts of the future. She asks her shrewd and interested questions and few are willing to admit that there are, as yet, no answers. The women will not even tell her their dreams, which she asks for after every other inquiry has failed. Miss O'Brien is the only one of them who is not masked, but to anyone who knows her other books, it wil...

When you call a book A Rose in the Heart you are taking a risk, perhaps a brave one; when you subtitle the same book "Love Stories," you may be approaching the territory of the sentimental with a foolhardy lack of regard. It is Edna O'Brien's particular genius to write about subjects which often fall to poor stylists or sloppy thinkers, because the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity. No one else writing today achieves what O'Brien does:...