A short life of the author
Dervla Murphy (1931–2022) was born on 28 November 1931 in Lismore, County Waterford. She left school at fourteen to care for her invalid mother and spent the next sixteen years at home, dreaming of travel. When her mother died in 1962, she set off on her bicycle for India.
Life and Career
Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (1965) — her account of cycling alone from Dunkirk to Delhi through Yugoslavia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in winter — is one of the great travel books: matter-of-fact, fearless, and astonishingly tough. She carried a .25 automatic pistol and used it to fend off wolves in Yugoslavia.
She went on to travel with a mule in Ethiopia (In Ethiopia with a Mule, 1968), with her young daughter in the Andes (Eight Feet in the Andes, 1983), and by bicycle through the Karakoram, Madagascar, Cameroon, Siberia, and Cuba. A Place Apart (1978) — about Northern Ireland during the Troubles — is her finest work of social observation.
Major Works and Themes
Murphy wrote about travel as physical endurance, cultural encounter, and political education. She was anti-imperialist, environmentalist, and unflinchingly honest about the places she visited.
Key Works
- Full Tilt (1965)
- A Place Apart (1978)
Collecting Murphy
Full Tilt first edition (John Murray, 1965) brings $100–$250. Her extensive bibliography makes selective collecting practical. Murphy died in 2022.