SOURCE: A review of The Sean O'Casey Reader: Plays, Autobiographies, Opinions, in The New York Times Book Review, December 15, 1968, pp. 1, 23-5.

O'Neill-Barna is an American writer. In the following review, she asserts that O'Casey's status as a major playwright and a social and theatrical visionary, long obscured by the opposition of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats and other influential critics, is firmly established in The Sean O'Casey Reader.

Doubtless it sounds ponderous to some and quixotic to others to say that Irish literature affirms the worth of ordinary man. Ponderous if we feel this is merely the neutral conclusion arrived at by all literatures; and quixotic if we weigh up particular writings about Ireland, either crowded accounts of wars, evictions, famines, workhouses and immigration, or whimsy about untidy servants, "Irish bulls," quaint amusing remarks, leprechauns and "Little People"—these last appreciated most by landlords and visitors. For...