If you had the courage and money to lead a fast life, wouldn't you do so?

'Confessions of a Young Man' is a memoir by Irish novelist George Moore who spent about 15 years in his teens and his 20s in Paris, and later in London as a struggling artist.

Moore's 'confessions' are aesthetic. If there's more, you'll find a soul struggling to rid itself of Victorian morality. Of landed gentry, Moore moved from Ireland to Paris hoping to be a painter. He immersed himself in Degas and Manet and discussed Gautier and Baudelaire at his Montmartre haunt until dawn.

This memoir was finished in his early 30s after he had decided to become a writer. He first tried his hand at journalism, but he found it stifling: ‘I longed to give a personal shape to something and this could not be achieved in an article.’ His memoir is youthfully all over the place, at times, but its alluring ideas are found on every page.

This is a wonderful look into the mind of the younger George Moore. George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic and playwright. As a writer he is best known for his contribution to the natural realist genre of literature. He was amongst the first English-language writers to follow in the footsteps of the French realists, especially the writings of Émile Zola were influential in his work. Moore himself went on to influence fellow Irishman, James Joyce. Although Moore's work is often not considered to belong to the mainstream Irish and British literature of his time, he is widely accepted as being one of the first great modern Irish novelists. His works have also been adapted for film and TV such as 'Albert Nobbs' (2011) starring Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska and Aaron Taylor-Johnson; and the 'Esther Waters' TV series from 1977 starring Gabrielle Lloyd, James Laurenson and Alison Steadman.