YEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER | The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and A Play in Verse. Churchtown, Dundrum: The Cuala Press, 1917

The Property of a Gentleman

YEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER

The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and A Play in Verse. Churchtown, Dundrum: The Cuala Press, 1917

8vo (5 1/2 x 8 3/8 in.; 143 x 211 mm). Ornamental woodcut device to preliminary blank printed in red, colophon printed in red; minor toning. Deep blue paper covered boards, title to upper cover printed in black, cream linen spine, paper label to spine, deep blue endpapers; sunning to edges of covers and spine, rubbing to head of spine, some fading to endpapers. In custom blue and buff linen covered clamshell case.  

First edition, one of 400 copies printed

The Wild Swans at Coole—a collection of poems and the play "At the Hawk's Well"—was first published by the Cuala Press in November 1917. Macmillan republished the poems in 1919 (without the play), and added an additional seventeen poems (see following lot). The present collection represents Yeats's "middle stage," and reflects themes of Irish nationalism and the creation of an Irish aesthetic.

REFERENCES

Wade 118