The Third Policeman - Publication History

Publication History

In 1940, O'Nolan completed the novel and circulated the typescript among friends in Dublin. He submitted it to Longman's, the English publisher of his first novel, At Swim-Two-Birds, but they declined to publish it. O'Nolan believed that Graham Greene, who had been champion of his at Longman, was still a reader with the company, when in fact he was not. Consequently, the novel fell on less sympathetic ears. The rejection notice read in part:

We realize the author's ability but think that he should become less fantastic and in this new novel he is more so.

The American author William Saroyan, who had become acquainted with O'Nolan during a brief stay in Dublin, offered the use of his literary agent in finding an American publisher, but with no success. O'Nolan made no further attempts at publication and shelved the manuscript, claiming that it had been lost. O'Nolan told his friends that while on a driving through Donegal the boot of his car opened unknown to him, causing the manuscript to flutter out page by page until it was gone. In reality he left it on the sideboard in his dining room, in plain view to him every day as he ate, for 26 years. He would later use elements of The Third Policeman in his 1964 novel The Dalkey Archive. After O'Nolan's death, his widow Evelyn O'Nolan sent the typescript to MacGibbon & Kee, O'Nolan's publishers throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The firm published the book in 1967. Reviewer Thomas Kilroy described it as a "masterpiece".