The history of Arsaces, Prince of Betlis

By Charles Johnston

Daniel Sanjiv Roberts editor

‘Daniel Sanjiv Roberts is to be congratulated for bringing this novel to a wider readership for it is, as he says, “complex” and “multifaceted”, and as such makes a vital contribution to our understanding of eighteenth-century Ireland in English literature', Norma Clarke, Literary Times Supplement (July 2015).

‘Charles Johnston’s The History of Arsaces, Prince of Betlis (1774) is the latest text to be republished as part of the Four Courts Press Early Irish Fiction series … the novel is expertly and authoritatively edited, in this case by Daniel Sanjiv Roberts. Roberts’ introduction and notes, as well as being informative and interesting in themselves, allow the full range of possibilities of Johnston’s text to be appreciated … it is an exemplary reminder of the diversity and breadth to be found in Irish fiction of this period, which the Early Irish Fiction project aspires to bring to a new audience. This critical edition also contains, thanks to Roberts, the most comprehensive biography to date of Johnston, about whom comparatively little is known’, Jim Shanahan, Studia Hibernica (2015).

‘It is clear from reading this excellent edition of The History of Arsaces that Charles Johnston is deserving of more sustained critical attention. Without a doubt, Roberts’s erudite, engaged and intelligent editing has provided the scholarly foundation for this necessary work’, Declan Kavanagh, Eighteenth-Century Ireland (2015).