The Invisible Army. A Story of Michael Collins. London: Barker, 1932. First Edition. Pp, 236. Blue cloth boards in publisher’s dust jacket. A nice bright copy.

Desmond Ryan’s study of Michael Collins, later republished as Michael Collins and the Invisible Army. It is a biographical and historical account of Collins and the clandestine network that drove the Irish independence struggle, written by someone who was an insider to the revolutionary period.

John Ryan (1893–1964) was uniquely positioned to write this book. He was one of Patrick Pearse’s first students at St. Enda’s, later became Pearse’s secretary, and served under him in the GPO during the Easter Rising. His deep involvement in the republican movement, including his disillusionment with the Civil War, informs his perspective. Ryan was also the author of the first biography of James Connolly and Remembering Sion, a memoir of the revolutionary era.