SOURCE: "The Artist Stories in The Untilled Field," in English Literature in Transition: 1880-1920, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1971, pp. 123-36.

Newell is an American critic and educator. In the following essay, he discusses the similarities of thirteen stories he classifies as "the artist stories, " focusing on Moore's perception of the artist in Irish society.

In the first English and American editions (1903) of George Moore's The Untilled Field, "In the Clay" begins the collection and "The Way Back" ends it. And though eleven other stories are placed between them, the events in these two are consecutive and their casts of characters are practically the same. Together with "The Wild Goose," they were the last stories in the collection to be conceived and written. Undoubtedly Moore intended the two to be "envelope" stories—to envelop the themes of the other stories and "round out" the collection. "In the Clay" concerns a sculptor...