Yeats, W.B.

4to (254 x 194mm.), first edition, number 19 of 25 copies numbered and signed by the printer, original green wrappers with light green silk cord, collector's chemise and folding box, minor creases at lower edge

Wade 117

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
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As noted by the colophon, "Of this poem twenty-five copies only have been privately printed by Clement Shorter for distribution among his friends". Yeats had composed his powerful poem between the execution of the Irish insurgents in May 1916 and the end of September, but he did not publish it more widely for four years, partly because he feared jeopardizing the cause of reclaiming Lane's picture collection for Ireland, and "partly because his own feelings were in the process of crystallization" (Roy Foster, Oxford DNB). 

"In its intellectual complexity, subtly modulated argument, and tightly controlled changes of mood and form, 'Easter 1916' reached a new level of achievement among WBY's political poems" (R.F. Foster, W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. II, Oxford, 2003, p. 59).