June 30, 2000

How a Prominent Irish Writer Paid a Posthumous Price for His Sharp Tongue

By SCOTT HELLER

George Moore, 1852-1933 by Adrian Frazier (Yale University Press)

"I cannot think of the place I was born without a sensation akin to nausea," the prolific novelist, critic, and playwright George Moore once wrote of Ireland. It was vintage Moore, sharp-tongued and troublemaking. During a 60-year career spent largely in England and France, he mingled with Europe's leading modern artists and writers. Yet many became enemies, thanks to his accounts in several literary memoirs and 16