The Property of a Gentleman
YEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER | Responsibilities. Churchtown, Dundrum: The Cuala Press, 1914
Lot Closed
June 21, 05:23 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
The Property of a Gentleman
YEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER
Responsibilities. Churchtown, Dundrum: The Cuala Press, 1914
8vo (5 5/8 x 8 1/4 in.; 145 x 210 mm). Inscribed by Yeats on preliminary blank, vignette to title-page, colophon printed in red; minor toning, a few stray spots. Original gray paper covered boards bound by Galwey & Co., upper board printed in black, cream colored linen spine, gray endpapers, edges uncut; some discoloration to covers, spine sunned, one or two spots to linen. In custom blue and buff linen covered clamshell case.
First edition, inscribed by Yeats, the Poole copy
"What's riches to him
That has made a great peacock
With the pride of his eye?"
On a preliminary blank, Yeats has written the first three lines of "Peacock" (present on page 33 of this volume), and signed his name along with the date of "June 1914." In addition to this, Yeats also made four corrections to the text in pencil; one each on pages 25 and 39, two on page 76.
As Dan Chiasson notes: "In [Pound's] Canto 83, he recalls overhearing Yeats as he composed 'The Peacock' downstairs in Stone Cottage, all those years ago:' _but was in reality Uncle William / downstairs composing / that had made a great Peacock / in the proide ov his oye / had made a great peeeeeeecock in the … / made a great peacock / in the proide of his oyyee / proide ov his oy-ee...'"
Yeats and Pound were great friends, and in November of 1913, Pound accompanied his fellow poet to Stone Cottage in Coleman's Hatch, Sussex. Yeats's eyesight was failing, and Pound was invited along as his secretary. The pair stayed for ten weeks, reading and writing, walking in the woods and fencing. This was to be the first of three winters the poets spent together at Stone Cottage.
Reginald Lane Poole was a British historian and Keeper of the Archives at Oxford. Yeats’ cousin Ruth Pollexfen married Edward Lane Poole in Dublin on 20 July 1911, with Yeats giving away the bride.
Number 7 of 400 copies
REFERENCES
Chiasson, “When Pound and Yeats Ate a Peacock,” The New Yorker, 24 February 2015; Foster, W.B.Yeats, A Life, Vol. I: The Apprentice Mage; Wade 110
PROVENANCE
Reginald Lane Poole (ownership inscription to front free endpaper)
Condition as described in catalogue entry.
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