YEATS, W. B.

£5,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Poems. First edition thus, number 315 of 375 copies signed by the poet, comprising his complete poems and a variorum of his textual changes. This copy is from the library of the poet Christopher Logue, with his ownership inscription and signature on the front free endpapers. Yeats influenced Logue's lyrical style, his poetic interest in myth and history, and his twin romantic and modernist sensibilities.Logue's inscription in the first volume reveals that the copy was previously owned by the poet and jazz journalist Charles Fox (1921-1991), who bought the set in 1949 and bequeathed it to Logue after his death; Fox's inscription ("Christmas 1949") is on the front free endpaper of the first volume. Peter Harrington acquired the volumes direct from Logue's estate.Throughout the 1930s, Yeats worked scrupulously to collect, revise, arrange, and edit his poetic corpus for a deluxe edition, to be published by Macmillan. This project was abruptly terminated by his death and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Yeats's editorial work, however, did not go to waste: his widow, Georgie, personally oversaw the work's publication, using Yeats's proofs and the limitation leaves signed by the poet before his death. This edition is now regarded as definitive.Loosely inserted is the publisher's advertisement and seven photographs of Dublin, featuring places associated with Yeats's life, each inscribed by Logue on the verso.

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