I Knock at the Door by Sean O'Casey
 
This is the story of the first 12 years of the authors life, full of sound, sometimes full of fury, and always signifying a lot. It is all written in a strange and original way, lighting up with constant flashes the life of a little boy in Dublin when Victoria reigned, when Parnell sent dart after dart into England's body and Darwin's disciplines were running around setting fire to the churches. Johnny, as the author calls himself, was Born in a big house in Lower Dorset Street, now a bank, sometime in the eighties when horses clattered over the cobble streets or strained themselves pulling trams over steell rails from one place to another. When tattered men, women and children mix with lowing cattle and murmuring sheep pass through one street,  and Lords and ladies, ambassadors, soldiers and sailors in gorgeous uniforms and glorious dresses pass through another, bound for a Castle ball…………...
 
Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.