Yeats, W.B. (ed.)

small 8vo (163 x 94mm.), PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO OLIVIA SHAKESPEAR ON THE FRONT ENDPAPER ("Mrs Shakspear, | from WB Yeats, | February, 1896."), original blue cloth gilt, collector's clamshell case, some slight browning, spine slightly browned, edges slightly worn and rubbed, upper hinge starting

Olivia Shakespear, authorial presentation inscription; her grandson Omar Pound (son of Ezra Pound), bookplate

Wade 219

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
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A MAJOR PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY YEATS AT AROUND THE TIME OF THEIR FIRST MEETING TO HIS FIRST LOVER AND LIFELONG FRIEND OLIVIA SHAKESPEAR.

Sometime, perhaps just after Yeats moved into his new flat in Woburn Buildings in February of 1896, the married novelist Olivia Shakespear (1863-1938) met Yeats through her cousin the poet Lionel Johnson and, mostly at her initiative, became Yeats's first lover. She introduced Yeats both to Ezra Pound and the Hyde-Lees family (the family of his future wife Georgie). A highly accomplished and very charming woman, their closeness ebbed and flowed over the years, with Yeats always on the rebound from Maud Gonne; they resumed seeing each other in 1900 and probably again in 1910 and in 1914. Olivia's personality was typical of the kind to which Yeats was attracted: strong-minded, unconventional, and dramatic. This was true also of the actress Florence Farr and, most of all of course, Maud Gonne. Olivia's daughter Dorothy met Ezra Pound in 1910 and married him in 1914. Foster writes of Yeats in 1915, "Above all, Olivia Shakespear remained the centre of his London life, still beautiful, still married, still ironically world-weary. Their early love affair and long friendship gave her a unique place in his affections, and him in hers". (R.F. Foster, W.B. Yeats. A Life, Vol. 2, p.3).

There are pencil markings and notes in several places in this copy, probably by Olivia Shakespear. One quotes Wilde, another a quotation of Yeats' "a brief forgiveness between opposites" (from Cuchullain's speech in On Baile's Strand).