Search Results: Authors starting with Y from Sumner & Stillman

1919. London: Macmillan and Co., 1919. Original blue cloth geometrically decorated in gilt (in orange on the spine), with dust jacket. First English Edition of this collection of essays, which consisted of 1500 copies -- slightly changed from the 1912 American edition (one essay dropped, another added, new Preface). He writes (for example) about meeting fellow student J.M. Synge for the first time and thereafter, and about putting on plays in a small town in the west of Ireland. As Yeats says in his Preface, he wrote the majority of these essays "during the ten years after 1902"... During those years I wrote little verse and no prose that did not arise out of some need of the Irish players... I was busy with a single art, that of a small, unpopular theatre; and this art may well seem... of no more account than the shaping of an agate... This volume, with its handsome geometric design by T. Sturge Moore (initialed), is in fine condition; included is the uncommon dust jacket, in very good condition… Read More

1934. London: Macmillan and Co., 1934. Original bright blue-green cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition, which consisted of 3000 copies -- dedicated to Lady Gregory, co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, who had died in 1932. This volume consists of four plays that had appeared onstage at the Abbey Theatre -- "The Words upon the Window-pane," "Fighting the Waves," "The Resurrection" and "The Cat and the Moon." "Fighting the Waves" appears in book form here for the first time; the other three had appeared only as numbers of the Cuala Press, but are here accompanied by long Introductions written by Yeats for this book. The final section of the book is the music, by George Antheil, for "Fighting the Waves." This volume is in fine condition, the leaves still unopened; the dust jacket is just about fine as well (a few stray marks). Wade 175.

1936. With an Introduction by W.B. Yeats and a Drawing by Sir William Rothenstein. London: Macmillan and Co., 1936. Original pale yellow linen, with dust jacket. First Edition. Dorothy Violet Ashton (1889-1956) married the Duke of Wellington (Gerald Wellesley) in 1914, but left him and their children eight years later, for a relationship with Vita Sackville-West. According to W.B. Yeats, Wellesley was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century -- see his Introduction to the Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935. "Within two minutes of our first meeting at my house [in 1935] he said: ‘You must sacrifice everything and everyone to your poetry'." Yeats discovered her poetry while researching the Oxford Book of Modern Verse and said "My eyes filled with tears. I read in excitement that was more delightful because it showed that I had not lost my understanding of poetry." Only later did he find who she was and what was her station in life.[Wiki] Yeats went on to edit and revise her poetry… Read More

1893. Yeats, Jack B.. With a Frontispiece by Jack B. Yeats. London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1893. 1 page preliminary undated ads. Original pea green cloth. First Edition of this very early work by Yeats (his fifth), a volume of Irish country tales often with supernatural aspects -- Yeats's "most creative attempt to render his folklore materials with precision" [Hirsch]; in a 1902 edition it would be substantially enlarged. On the spine of this copy, the publisher's name is in capital and lower-case letters, where on some copies it is printed all in capitals; it is not certain if either binding was precedent, but it is generally agreed that if either came earlier, it was the all-capitals binding. This is a near-fine copy, with very minor rubbing at the extremities and minor cracking of the endpapers. Wade 8.

1870. With Illustrations. London: Macmillan and Co., 1870. 44 pp ads dated January 1870. Original green cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of this historical novel, loosely based upon King Henry V of England and his "caged lion," James I of Scotland. This is a very good copy, perhaps near-fine, slightly rubbed at the binding extremities. Not in Wolff, but #9 in his original collection donated to Harvard.