BROADSIDES, A COLLECTION OF NEW AND OLD SONGS, 1935

Dublin: Cuala Press, 1935. SIGNED LIMITED FIRST EDITION. Fine/Very Good. ILLUSTRATIONS BY: YEATS, JACK B; BROWN, VICTOR; O'SULLIVAN, SEAN; PEET, E.C; KERNOFF, HARRY; MCGONIGAL, MAURICE MUSIC BY DUFF, ARTHUR. SIGNED LIMITED FIRST EDITION OF W.B. YEATS'S BROADSIDES, ONE OF ONLY 100 COPIES SIGNED BY W.B. YEATS AND F.R. HIGGINS AT END OF INTRODUCTORY ESSAY AND ACCOMPANIED BY BREATHTAKING HAND-COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS. Collection of 12 broadsides originally issued individually from January-December 1935. Containing both traditional and new Irish ballads written by Yeats, F.R. Higgins, Padraic Colum, and others. With engraved music throughout. Numerous evocative and emotional hand-colored woodblock illustrations, including many by Jack B. Yeats, brother of the famed W.B Yeats.  Only 300 copies printed, with only 100 copies bound and signed, making this production EXTREMELY RARE. Signed by Yeats and Higgins at the end of their preface, Anglo-Irish Ballads. "Yeats is now seen as one of a handful of Irish writers whose influence and example helped create twentieth-century modernist literature in the English language...his huge international reputation is securely based on the mystery and grandeur of his late verse and the poignancy of his love poetry, but he first came to fame as the exotically Celtic poet of a 'new' nationalist Ireland: almost single-handed, he made Irishness culturally fashionable. Spearheading a great cultural renaissance, he moved into his maturity as the voice of his country" (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) . It was not merely Yeats, however, who is responsible for arousing Irish patriotism.  The Cuala Press, a small press started by Yeat's sister Elizabeth, is regarded as one of the first publishing houses to bring attention to Irish literature, art and music.  Her production of Broadsidesis no different. "The glory that once was Ireland and could again be Ireland was the fire that burned unquenched in the mind and will of Elizabeth Corbett Yeats" (Colby Library Quarterly) . Dublin: Cuala Press, 1935. Small folio, original cloth backed boards with paper label to upper cover. Complete with what is almost certainly the original plain unlettered dust jacket (we can find no other examples of the jacket, but this is comparable to other jackets for Cuala Press books). Book remarkably bright and clean with only a couple of tiny spots to cloth. A few chips to dust jacket. Housed in vibrant red custom box. An VERY RARE AND NEARLY PERFECT COPY of a book of large cultural importance with dazzlingly fresh illustrations.