White, Terence de Vere

▪ 1995

      Irish author and editor (b. April 29, 1912, Dublin, Ireland—d. June 17, 1994, London, England), was the influential literary editor of the Irish Times (1961-77) and the author of more than two dozen books. He was also a successful lawyer and a leading figure in the cultural life of Dublin for more than 30 years, with important positions on the boards of the National Gallery (from 1967), the National Library (1946-79), the Chester Beatty Library (1959-80), and the Gate Theatre (1969-81). The son of a Protestant solicitor (who died when White was a boy) and his Roman Catholic wife, he was apprenticed in a solicitor's office at age 15 and worked there full-time while studying law at Trinity College (B.A., 1931; LL.B., 1933). In 1946 White published The Road of Excess. This was followed by several more nonfiction works, but he kept his legal practice until the success of his first novel, An Affair with the Moon (1959), induced the Irish Times to offer him a job. Thereafter he wrote novels, short stories, criticism, histories, and biographies. White's novels include Prenez Garde (1961), The March Hare (1970), and Chat Show (1987), while his nonfiction works include The Parents of Oscar Wilde (1967) and The Anglo-Irish (1972). White was a member of the Irish Academy of Letters, a professor of literature at the Royal Hibernian Academy, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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