Early Poems and Stories

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1925. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. No. 131 of 250 copies, octavo size, 538 pp., signed by Yeats. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is acknowledged by many as "supreme among modern Irish poets". He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 (the first Irish to be so recognized), at which time he was "one of Dublin's great established figures, both in his own right and as the representative of the cultural renaissance which...had set in motion the Irish revolution and war of independence." Throughout his life, and throughout his poetry - which is still read and loved today - Yeats is recognized as supremely Irish, with his life and poetry reflective of his Irish identity.

"Early Poems and Stories", published in 1925, was issued in a binding uniform with "Later Poems". It "contains a collection of poems and stories from the late 1880s and early 1890s. During this period Yeats was a young struggling poet impressed by the tales and myths of the Celtic past" (n.b., from the web site "Ask About Ireland"). The work includes: "The Wanderings of Usheen", "Crossways" (16 poems), "The Rose" (22 poems), "The Celtic Twilight", "The Secret Rose", "Stories of Red Hanrahan", "Rosa Alchemica" including "The Tables of the Law" and "The Adoration of the Magi". Per the bibliography, several of the works were edited from their original format for this volume and some new material, such as footnotes, was added.

___DESCRIPTION: Teal cloth shelfback with brown laid paper boards, mounted paper label with black lettering and decorative border inset onto the front board, similar label on the spine, top edge rough-cut, fore- and bottom edges uncut, decorated endpapers, Yeats' signature on the limitation page tipped in to the flyleaf, this no. 131 of 250 copies, September publication date on the copyright page; octavo size (8" by 5.5"), pagination: [limitation statement] [i-iv] v-x [1-4] 5-528, including a "Notes" section at the rear with comments by Yeats.

___CONDITION: Near fine, the binding clean, perfectly straight corners without rubbing, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, the interior is clean and bright, and entirely free of prior owner markings; light wear to the head and tail of the spine, the spine label lightly sunned and the label on the front board with a few light spots of soil,, light dustiness to the text block edges, the endpapers slightly toned and with some light residue of old cello tape, the front endpapers with the outline of (likely) an old piece of paper having formerly been laid in; lacking the slipcase, as with most copies. Even with its few faults, still a near fine copy.

___CITATION: Wade, listed with the US trade edition in no. 148 (note the trade edition was not published until November of 1925; this limited edition published two months earlier, on September 22, 1925).

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