Although Yeats was never inattentive to the details of any of his texts, it is clear that he was less concerned with the proofreading of his prose than with that, say, of his poetry or plays. As noted in the Introduction, when Yeats returned the proofs of Mythologies to Macmillan in 1932, he indicated that Thomas Mark could see to the remaining details (at the time, Yeats anticipated a steady stream of proofs for other volumes in the Edition de Luxe). Moreover, the state of the contemporary proofs as well as the posthumous proofs and published text do not show Mark and his colleagues at Macmillan, London, at their finest hour.1 Given those facts as well as the likely interests of most readers of this edition, a more liberal policy of emendation than that used in, for instance, The Poems, 2nd ed. (1997), has seemed advisable. It has also seemed useful not to clutter the text with emendation signals and to keep the textual apparatus to a minimum.
For reasons explained in the “History of the Text,” the base-text for the major part of this edition is the corrected page proofs of Mythologies (1931–32), Manuscript 30,030 in the National Library of Ireland. The proofs show four categories of revision, which have been treated as follows.
A. Changes in ink by Thomas Mark followed by a query. Yeats replied to almost all of these, in most cases accepting Mark’s suggestion. Revisions not explicitly rejected are incorporated into the present text and are not considered emendations.
B. Changes in ink by Thomas Mark not followed by a query. Many of these were simple corrections of errors, which obviously did not require a response from Yeats. Yeats did not comment on these changes, and thus they have been treated as in A.
C. Changes in red ink, possibly but not certainly by Mark. It is probable that these are the result of a preliminary checking of the proofs against the copy submitted to the printer. Of the three red ink markings in The Irish Dramatic Movement, two concern the spacing between letters. The single substantive change, the correction in the 1901 Samhain of the misprint “must say” to “may say” (the reading of all previous texts), has been treated as in A.
D. Suggested changes in pencil by “Sutherland.” As argued in the “History of the Text,” these markings would not have been present when Yeats reviewed the proofs in 1932 and thus they have not been incorporated in the present text as a matter of course. In some instances, of course, these revisions will coincide with the changes listed below.
In sum, the base-text consists of the Mythologies proofs with their ink corrections (of whatever color) as accepted, rejected, or modified by Yeats, but without the pencil markings.
A. The source and date of each item from the 1899–1909 publications is included, as in “THE ARROW: 20 October 1906—The Season’s Work.” As noted in the “History of the Text,” the running heads in the Collected Works (1908) attempted to provide this information, albeit imperfectly. The later texts have “SAMHAIN/ SAMHAIN” only for the 1901 essay and then the imprecise “THE ARROW: 1906.”2 The two items from the 1903 United Irishman have been headed “SAMHAIN,” as it is clear that both Plays and Controversies and the Edition de Luxe proofs omit any reference to the original printings and implicitly assign the works to the 1903 Samhain. Yeats’s own note to “A People’s Theatre” cites the first publication of that essay.
B. The spacing between sections follows that in the Collected Works, with spaces coinciding with page breaks determined by reference to the original pamphlets; in addition, on the proofs of Mythologies Yeats decided to retain a space which had been accidentally introduced into “The Dramatic Movement” (Samhain, 1904). As noted in the “History of the Text,” many of the original spaces were lost in successive reprintings of The Irish Dramatic Movement. In this edition a space coincides with a page break at the bottom of pages 23 and 180.
C. Quotations introduced by “he said” or similar constructions are preceded by a comma; other quotations are preceded by a colon (without a following dash). On the title page of the Mythologies proofs Mark had asked “ ‘He said’ etc., before quoted speech, are followed either by a comma or a colon in the text of this volume. Is it worth while to aim at any uniformity in this detail, as suggested in the margins?” Yeats replied “I leave this the to Macmillan[’]s reader. I have accepted his suggestions where eve where ever he has made the correction but I am a babe in such things. Bullen Some printer[’]s reader put in those colons[.]”
D. “S.” has been used before the names of saints. As noted in “History of the Text,” Yeats indicated his preference for this form on the Mythologies proofs. However, names of buildings (St. Teresa’s Hall) and places (St. Stephen’s Green) have been printed in their standard form. It is very unlikely indeed that Yeats anticipated “S.” being used in those instances. The first was queried only in pencil on the Mythologies proofs; it was revised to “Saint” on the 1939 proofs (the erroneous “Theresa’s” continues into Explorations). “St. Stephen’s Green” was unchallenged on the Mythologies proofs and indeed survived intact through the galley proofs of Explorations, on which it also was changed to “Saint.”
E. As explained in “History of the Text,” “country-man” and similar forms have been used when Yeats refers to the inhabitants of rural Ireland.
F. The footnotes that Yeats added to the Collected Works in Verse and Prose are variously dated “March 1908,” “1908,” or undated; these have been regularized to “March 1908.” The single footnote in the periodical version of “A People’s Theatre” has been dated “1919.” Yeats’s footnote numbers have been changed to asterisks, so as to avoid confusion with the numbers for the editorial notes.
The following specific emendations are indicated in the text by a †. The table below lists a short title, the page on the Edition de Luxe proofs (when applicable), and the page number in this edition; the reading of the base-text; the emended reading; and the authority (if any) for the emendation. CW is volume four of the 1908 Collected Works, P&C the 1923 Plays and Controversies.
Title page—Proofs [301] |
|||
[1.2] |
1919. |
1919 |
no contemporary authority |
S1902—Proofs 315 |
|||
vol. i. |
Vol. I |
cf. Samhain (1902), CW |
|
S1903—Proofs 330 |
|||
ill-done |
ill done |
Proofs 306 |
|
S1903—Proofs 331 |
|||
Broth, and |
Broth and |
no contemporary authority |
|
S1903Reform—Proofs 338 |
|||
faery |
Faery |
Proofs 98 |
|
S1904Dramatic—Proofs 359 |
|||
ballad singers |
ballad-singers |
Proofs 373 |
|
S1904First—Proofs 375 |
|||
mind; |
mind, |
no contemporary authority |
|
S1904Play—Proofs 394 |
|||
in last |
in the last |
no contemporary authority |
|
S1904Play—Proofs 394 |
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But last |
But the last |
no contemporary authority |
|
S1905—Proofs 416 |
|||
bookkes |
bokes |
Middle English spelling |
|
S1905—Proofs 424 |
|||
loves |
loaves |
all previous editions |
|
S1908First |
|||
second and third hand |
second- and third-hand |
cf. Proofs 465 (“second-hand”) |
|
S1908First |
|||
Essay |
essay |
no contemporary evidence |
|
S1908First |
|||
unIrish |
un-Irish |
earlier in essay |
|
S1908First |
|||
Kickham, |
Kickham; |
rest of sentence |
|
S1908First |
|||
secondhand |
second-hand |
Proofs 465 |
|
S1908First |
|||
working men. |
workingmen. |
earlier in sentence |
|
S1908First |
|||
Humaine, |
humaine |
no contemporary evidence |
|
S1908First |
|||
thoughts, as |
thoughts as |
no contemporary evidence |
|
PeoplesTheatre—Proofs 462 |
|||
& |
and |
holograph revision |
|
PeoplesTheatre—Proofs 462 |
|||
& |
and |
holograph revision |
|
PeoplesTheatre—Proofs 465 |
|||
‘The soulless |
the ‘soulless |
text in Rosetti |
|
PeoplesTheatre—Proofs 465 |
|||
national school |
National School |
cf. Proofs 413 |
|
PeoplesTheatre—Proofs 471 |
|||
theatre |
Theatre |
earlier in essay |
|
BMay1899Theatre |
|||
successors |
successes |
Ideas of Good and Evil (1903) |
|
BFebruary1900Plans |
|||
it |
It |
text in Shelley |
|
S1902Notes |
|||
forerunners |
forerunner |
no contemporary authority |
|
A20October1906Note |
|||
play—The |
play—, The |
elsewhere in sentence |
|
A20October1906Note |
|||
Gregory; a |
Gregory, a |
elsewhere in sentence |
|
A20October1906Note |
|||
means, is |
means is |
no contemporary authority |
|
A20October1906Note |
|||
Hyacinth |
Hyacinth Halvey |
no contemporary authority |
|
A1June1907Notes |
|||
individuals |
individuals, |
no contemporary authority |
|
S1908Events |
|||
[no asterisks] |
[asterisks] |
page break |
|
S1908Events |
|||
quiet |
quiet, |
no contemporary authority |
|
S1908Dates |
|||
April 27th. |
April 20th. |
error in dating |
|
S1908Dates |
|||
206.1 |
Oct. 21. |
October 22nd. |
error in dating |
S1908Dates |
|||
206.1 |
Version, The |
Version of The |
earlier in list |
S1908Dates |
|||
Mar 16. |
March 23rd. |
error in dating |
|
The following are corrections of obvious errors and misprints as well as regularizations to Yeats’s preferred form of certain Irish names. See also note 2 to “Miss Horniman’s Offer of Theatre and the Society’s Acceptance” (page 173) and note 1 to “Dates and Places of the First Performance of Plays produced by the National Theatre Society and its Predecessors” (page 203).
A. Ambiguous line-end hyphenation in the base-texts has been adjudicated by the form of the word used elsewhere in Yeats’s canon, when possible in The Irish Dramatic Movement. In the single instance of a unique word, “anti-/masques” in “Plans and Methods” from the February 1900 Beltaine, the form used by Robert Browning in The Ring and the Book has been adopted. All hyphenated forms in this edition are therefore to be considered authorial, unless listed as a specific emendation.
B. Yeats’s signature or initials have not been included, except in “[Notes]” from the 20 October 1906 Arrow, where the initials may delimit Yeats’s authorship of the item; in “Dates and Places of the First Performance of Plays produced by the National Theatre Society and Its Predecessors” from the 1908 Samhain, where Yeats is likely responsible only for the initialed note; and in “The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet: Statement by the Directors” from the 25 August 1909 Arrow, where the signature is followed by a title.
C. Large initial letters, caps, or small caps at the beginning of some essays have not been reproduced, except for the salutations in “A People’s Theatre” and “Miss Horniman’s Offer . . .”
The remaining matters follow the typographical and format conventions of The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats.
D. The presentation of headings is standardized. Main headings are set in full capitals (capitals and small capitals for subtitles). Section numbers are in roman capitals. All headings are centered and have no concluding full point.
E. The placement of quotation marks has been regularized to British usage in Yeats’s texts.
F. Quotations that are set off from the text and indented are not placed within quotation marks.
G. Except in headings, titles of stories and poems are placed within quotation marks; titles of books, plays, long poems, periodicals, operas, statues, paintings, and drawings are set in italics.
H. Regardless of its length in the base-text, a dash is set as an unspaced em rule when used as punctuation.