George Moore was born in County Mayo, Ireland on February 24, 1852. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s. While in Paris, his first poetry collection, The Flowers of Passion, was self-published in 1877. He eventually decided to become a professional writer. In 1881, he published his second poetry collection, Pagan Poems. He wrote numerous poetry collections, short story collections, and novels including A Modern Lover (1883); A Mummer's Wife (1885); Esther Waters (1894); Sister Teresa (1901); The Brook Kerith (1916); and Aphroditis in Aulis (1930). He also found success as an art critic with books such as Impressions and Opinions (1891) and Modern… Painting (1893). As an autobiographer, he wrote His Confessions of a Young Man (1888), Memoirs of My Dead Life (1906), and the trilogy Hail and Farewell! (1911-14). He also wrote the plays The Strike at Arlingford (1893) and Diarmuid and Grania (1901). He died of uraemia on January 21, 1933.