Peter Costello is a Dublin-born author, and biographer, an eminent cultural historian and scholar of James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

. He attended the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

. He has written biographies of James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

, Flann O'Brien

Flann O'Brien

Brian O'Nolan was an Irish novelist, playwright and satirist regarded as a key figure in postmodern literature. Best known for novels such as At Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman and An Béal Bocht and many satirical columns in The Irish Times Brian O'Nolan (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966) was...

 and Jules Verne

Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

. He has also written books about Clongowes Wood College

Clongowes Wood College

Clongowes Wood College is a voluntary secondary boarding school for boys, located near Clane in County Kildare, Ireland. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1814, it is one of Ireland's oldest Catholic schools, and featured prominently in James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the...

, Clerys

Clerys

Clerys is a long-established department store on O'Connell Street in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, a focal point of the street, and of the city....

, and other topics. His first book In Search of Lake Monsters (1974) deals primarily with the Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster is a cryptid that is reputed to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next....

, but also similar reports of creatures in lakes and Sea Serpent

Sea serpent

A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of sea monster either wholly or partly serpentine.Sightings of sea serpents have been reported for hundreds of years, and continue to be claimed today. Cryptozoologist Bruce Champagne identified more than 1,200 purported sea serpent sightings...

s.

Publications

• 1974 In Search of Lake Monsters (Garnstone Press) hardback
• 1975 In Search of Lake Monsters (Panther) paperback ISBN 586-04196-6
• 1977 Heart Grown Brutal: Irish Revolution in Literature from Parnell to the Death of Yeats, 1891-1939 (Gill & Macmillan)
• 1978 Jules Verne: Inventor of Science Fiction (Hodder & Stoughton)hardback
• 1979 The Magic Zoo : The Natural History of Fabulous Animals, Including Dragons, Mermaids, Unicorns and Centaurs (St. Martin's Press)
• 1980 James Joyce (Gill & Macmillan)
• 1981 Leopold Bloom: A Biography (Gill & Macmillan)
• 1983 Jules Verne: Inventor of Science Fiction (Scribner) paperback
• 1989 Dublin Churches (Gill & Macmillan)
• 1989 Clongowes Wood: A History of Clongowes Wood College, 1814-1989 (Gill & Macmillan)
• 1991 The Real World of Sherlock Holmes (Robinson)
• 1992 The Life of Leopold Bloom: A Novel (Roberts Rinehart)
• 1992 The very heart of the city: The story of Denis Guiney and Clerys (Clery and Co)
• 1996 Dublin Literary Pub Crawl (A.& A.Farmar)
• 1998 Dublin Castle in the life of the Irish Nation (Merlin)
• 1999 Dublin's Literary Pubs (2nd edition of 1996 book)
• 2006 Conan Doyle: Detective (Robinson Publishing)
• 2008 Denis Guiney (UCD)