SOURCE: Boyd, Ernest A. “Edward Martyn.” In The Contemporary Drama of Ireland, pp. 12-31. London: Little, Brown, and Company, 1928.

In the following essay, Boyd surveys Martyn's major dramas from The Heather Field to The Dream Physician.

George Moore's veracious essay in indiscreet autobiography, Hail and Farewell, contains no figure more interesting than Edward Martyn, who survives the ordeal of fictional reconstruction as successfully as A. E., and John Eglinton, in that all three emerge undiminished. Those three volumes of Irish literary history drew attention to the personality of many writers who would have preferred to let their own books speak for them, and Edward Martyn may be counted amongst their number. Biographically there is little to relate of him that bears upon his work for the Irish Theatre. A Nationalist of strong convictions, he has found himself involved in conflicts arising out of the clash of his political...