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YEATS, W. B.
Stories of Red Hanrahan.
First edition, presentation copy, with the author's signed inscription to the first leaf recto, "Lady Gregory from her friend W. B. Yeats, April 18, 1905." On the following leaf, below the limitation notice, Yeats has written in manuscript the 12-line poem beginning "O hurry to the water amid the trees", an earlier state of which appears in the volume as "The Twisting of the Rope", and which was later retitled "The Hollow Wood" and then, after further revision, "The Ragged Wood". The last line of the poem is "No one has ever loved but you & I." With Lady Gregory's bookplate. This is the de facto dedication copy as, instead of a dedication, an authorial note is printed in red at the head of [a4] recto: "A friend has helped me to remake these stories nearer to the mind of the country places where Hanrahan and his like wandered and are remembered." The friend was Lady Gregory (Lady Isabella Augusta Perse Gregory, the widow of Sir Robert Gregory of Coole Park). Yeats testified to her hand in Red Hanrahan when he inscribed a copy to John Quinn: "I think the stories have the emotion of folklore. They are but half mine now, and often [Gregory's] beautiful idiom is the better half." Gregory, who had herself translated old Celtic texts and tales, responded, "I was very glad and proud to help in the re-writing of these stories, and for any trouble I had I repaid myself by bringing Hanrahan back to Galway from Sligo where W. Yeats had first set him wandering" (quoted in Kohfeldt). One of 500 copies; the entire edition.
Octavo. Original linen-backed blue boards, white paper title label to upper board and spine printed in black, blue endpapers. Custom blue morocco-backed slipcase and chemise. A trace of offset to free endpapers, still a fine copy.
