# Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/colm-toibin/mad-bad-dangerous-to-know

![Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin/colm-toibin/mad-bad-dangerous-to-know_978-02-4135-442-1.jpg?v=2026-04-24%2014%3A34%3A41)

- Authors: [Colm Tóibín](https://www.bookquiver.com/colm-toibin)
- Language: en_GB
- Published: 2018-10-25

## Description

A father... is a necessary evil.' Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses In Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know Colm Tóibín takes three of Ireland's greatest writers - Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats and James Joyce - and examines their earliest influences: their fathers. With his inimitable wit and sensitivity, Tóibín introduces us to Wilde Senior, the philandering doctor whose libel case prefigured that of his son; the elder Yeats, an impoverished artist who never finished a painting; and to John Stanislaus Joyce, the hard-drinking, storytelling father of James, who couldn't feed his own family. This is an illuminating study of how each of these men cast a long shadow not only over the lives of their famous sons, but over the works for which they are celebrated and cherished.

## Editions

### Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

- Publisher: Penguin
- ISBN: 978-02-4135-442-1
- Pages: 192
- Published: 2019-07-25
- Language: en_GB

### Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

- Publisher: Penguin
- Medium: ebook
- ISBN: 978-02-4135-443-8
- Published: 2018-10-25
- Language: en_GB

### Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

- Publisher: Viking
- Medium: audio
- Length: 6 h 6 min
- Narrated by: Colm Toibin
- ISBN: 978-02-4137-551-8
- Published: 2018-10-25
- Language: en_GB