The Secret Rose.
With Illustrations by J. B. Yeats.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, Limited, 1897 Stock Code: 135709
A beautiful copy
First edition, first impression, first issue binding with "Lawrence & Bullen" at the foot of spine, scarce in such nice condition. With The Secret Rose Yeats was at the height of his powers as a prose mythographer, bringing together the two key loci of his imagination: the Celtic folklore of his native Ireland, and the alchemical mysteries with which he became familiar through his interactions with the Golden Dawn in London and Paris. These are respectively represented by two characters, latterly the subject of their own books, but here appearing for the first time: Red Hanrahan, the wandering poet (or "gleeman") of whom Yeats would later stirringly remember in The Tower (1928), "I myself created Hanrahan / and drove him drunk or sober through the dawn. / He had but broken knees for hire / and horrible splendour of desire, / I thought it all out thirty years ago") and Michael Robartes, whom Yeats would later co-opt as being central to the origins of his spiritual discoveries in A Vision.Description
Octavo. Original blue cloth, title and pictorial decoration to spine and boards gilt.
Illustrations
Frontispiece and 6 plates by John B. Yeats.
Condition
A very good copy indeed, bright and clean with a little wear to the spine ends.
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