James Stephens was the most beguiling and enigmatic of the writers who contributed to the Irish literary revival during the early decades of the twentieth century. His reputation now rests almost entirely on The Crock of Gold (1912), but at the height of his powers he created a remarkable body of poetry and fiction, which won him acclaim in his own lifetime and which is long overdue for reappraisal. To William Butler Yeats, AE (George Russell), and George Moore, the lions of Ireland's literary renaissance, Stephens's originality and distinction were beyond dispute; James Joyce, who at first perceived in Stephens "my rival, the latest Irish genius," later became his fast friend and admirer, entrusting him with the completion of Finnegans Wake (1939) in the event of his proving unequal to the task. Stephens's prestige as a writer was threatened only by his prowess as a conversationalist and raconteur, which secured...