WB Yeats | ‘At the Hawk’s Well’, corrected typescript, and related material on his collaborations with Edmund Dulac

W.B. Yeats and Edmund Dulac

A collection relating to At the Hawk’s Well and Yeats’s collaboration with Edmund Dulac:

i) W.B. Yeats. Corrected typescript of At the Hawk’s Well, here entitled ‘The Well of Immortality’, annotated on the title page by Edmund Dulac (“Working Copy with notes by Ezra Pound & myself & corrections by W.B.Y.”), 4 pages with revisions by Yeats in black ink, numerous cancels in red crayon, and extensive pencil notes providing detailed stage directions including actors’ movements and sound effects, with some diagrams, altogether 15 numbered pages and two full pages of typed inserts, also one slip with revised typed text, in brown wrappers, typed title, upper cover numbered “2” in black ink and with “OK” in red crayon

ii) W.B. Yeats. Two typed letters signed, to Edmund Dulac, on the performance of At the Hawk’s Well at the Abbey Theatre, praising Dulac’s music and costume designs (“…the way you managed the gong in your music is very effective and is a great surprise to people here. We have a Burmese gong. The masks and costumes have arrived safely…”), 2 pages, 4to, Dublin, 21 March-4 April 1924

iii) W.B. Yeats. Two autograph letters signed, to Dulac, asking his opinion on some translations of Yeats’s poems into French, and commenting on his ongoing work (“…I have been putting the last touches to a new dance-play which will be danced this year at the Abbey. The dialogue is in prose but there are lyrics & I think good ones…”), 2 pages, 4to and 8vo, Savile Club, London, and Riversdale, Dublin, 13 January to 20 December [1936?]

iv) W.B. Yeats. Three typed letters, unsigned and probably early copies, to Dulac, 7 pages, 22 March 1920 to 27 May 1937

v) Edmund Dulac. Three retained autograph draft letters to W.B. Yeats (one incomplete), and one to George Yeats, on the inclusion of Yeats’s work in a season of verse dramas performed by The Group Theatre, alongside works by Eliot, Auden, and others, including Dulac’s critique of A Full Moon in March (“…The love and blood theme I find unpleasant, many people find it so…”), with extensive revisions, 6 pages, 4to, [1935]

vi) [Edmund Dulac, attrib.] Watercolour drawing of a setting sun in a mountainous landscape, unsigned, on card, 222 x 180mm, pencil note at the foot “Design to be reversed Right to left”), with later label (“DULAC – Design for Back screen? Not used for At The Hawk’s Well 1916”)

vii) [Edmund Dulac.] Autograph music for flute, dulcimer, and harp, 1 page, folio, mounted on card, captioned on mount in pencil “’At the Hawk’s Well’ Edmund Dulac original score for W.B. Yeats’ play”, torn with some loss

viii) Edmund Dulac. Typescript essay entitled ‘Without the Twilight’, reminiscing about Yeats (“…round the Cuchulains, the Deirdres, how little there is of the clap-trap inevitable with the Launcelots the Guineveres, the nymphs, the shepherds!...”), one autograph correction, 5 pages, 4to, n.d.

ix) [Edmund Dulac.] Pan and Syrinx, typescript, with stage directions added in manuscript in red ink, dated 19 November 1918, 9 pages, 4to, loose in paper wrappers with title and red ink stamps

x) Alvin Langdon Coburn. 14 vintage silverprints of the 1916 production of At the Hawk’s Well, including two striking portraits of Michio Ito in his Hawk costume designed by Dulac, large format (c290 x 210mm or greater) and signed on the mount in pencil by the photographer, the rest smaller format (c.80 x 100mm) and depicting Ito, Old Man (Allan Wade), Cuchulain, and Musicians, mounted

xi) File of correspondence relating to Dulac and Yeats, comprising letters by Joseph Hone, Stephen Gwynn (3), Shane Leslie, and Allan Wade (5), together with retained drafts and related notes by Dulac, altogether 21 leaves, 1940-51

xii) Folder of research material including pamphlets, photographs, photocopies, and notes

A RICH COLLECTION RELATING TO AN IMPORTANT ARTISTIC COLLABORATION. Edmund Dulac first met W.B. Yeats around 1912, and the two men developed a close friendship. In 1916 Yeats asked Dulac to collaborate on a play modelled on the Noh drama of Japan. Dulac designed costumes and props, and even wrote accompanying music when, according to a later letter, “Yeats asked me to replace the impromptu ululations in Indo-Irish style of a Mrs X in the ‘Hawk’s Well’ by something more adequate”. 

This copy of the typescript was kept by Dulac, who described it in a later letter to Allan Wade, who had performed in the play and was now working on his bibliography of Yeats: “There are the usual corrections and a number of alterations either separately typed or in Yeats’s hand. There are also diagrams and stage directions mostly in pencil by Ezra Pound and myself.” (23 February 1950)

This collection also includes a typescript of Dulac’s ‘Pan and Syrinx’, a parody of a Yeatsian Noh play, written during the final months of World War I when Dulac and his wife had escaped London for Cranleigh in Surrey (White, p.92).