The Brook Kerith

"Possibly the Greatest Prose Book in the English Tongue"

Paper by Dennis Kennedy to the Belfast Literary Society

George Moore's The Brook Kerith

(Monday October 3, 2011)

In the first decades of the 20th century George Moore was among the most renowned and successful authors in these islands. In 1916 he published The Brook Kerith, praised by some as 'possibly the greatest prose book in the English tongue' and denounced by one journal as quite the most disgraceful thing ever offered for review. In it Moore retells the story of Jesus, but with a different ending. Jesus recovers in the tomb after the crucifixion, and is hidden and nursed back to health by Joseph of Aramathea. This paper outlines the plot and sets the book in the context of Moore's other works, suggesting reasons why such a masterpiece has been and still is largely neglected.