“Great hatred, little room”: thus W. B. Yeats once described his native Ireland (P 259). By the time that the Irish Literary Theatre was ready to offer its first production, Yeats was no stranger to controversy. An occasional publication in which he could present his views on the drama and respond to the inevitable attacks must have seemed altogether in order. The germ of the idea may be found in a letter to Lady Gregory on 16 December 1898:
We have arranged with Gill [editor of the Dublin Daily Express] that he is to bring out a series of articles on the literary theatre in various countries of which yours will be one. The articles are to be published afterwards in a pamphlet.1
This project did not come to fruition, but the opening of the Irish Literary Theatre on 8-9 May 1899 was indeed accompanied by the first issue of Beltaine (May 1899), published by E. J. Oldmeadow in “London: At the Sign of the Unicorn” and in “Dublin: at the ‘Daily Express’ Office.” Described as “The Organ of the Irish Literary Theatre,” the title—meaning “The Irish May Festival, the month of May,” or “May Day” as Yeats told a correspondent—would stress the Irishness of the venture as well as confound his English critics, who would be able neither to translate nor to pronounce it (CL3 250). Although as of 21 April 1899 Yeats planned to distribute it “free in the theatre” (CL2 398), the pamphlet is headed “Threepence—Including Programme.” A substantial publication of twenty-four pages, the first Beltaine included contributions not only by Yeats but also by C. H. Herford, Lionel Johnson, and George Moore.
The second performances of the Irish Literary Theatre on 19-20 February 1900 were accompanied by the next number of Beltaine (February 1900). The program was not included, the size had increased to thirty-two pages, and the price had doubled to sixpence. The contributors in addition to Yeats were Lady Gregory, Alice Milligan, Edward Martyn, and George Moore. The third and what turned out to be the last number of Beltaine was published in April 1900. A mere six-page shadow of the earlier incarnations and priced at a halfpence, a single essay by Yeats was its sole contents. A month earlier Yeats had told Lady Gregory that the publisher wants “to issue both numbers of ‘Beltaine’ together, in stiff boards” and that the “little book should be useful to us in many ways” (CL2 497, 498). All three numbers were so published, probably in the third week of May 1900.
On 21 May 1901, Yeats suggested to Lady Gregory that “‘Beltaine’ ought to come out quite early this year” and that it “should be a Gaelic propaganda paper this time & might really sell very well”(CL372). On 24 May 1901, Lady Gregory wrote in reply that Beltaine “should be printed and published in Ireland,” as “the home industry people would be put in good humour” and that “we want all the aids to popularity we can get for the theatre”; she also recommended that any profits should go to the Gaelic League (CL3 74n1). Yeats at once agreed on both counts, suggesting that if the Dublin publishers refused, a note to that effect could be published in the next issue: “I don’t know which would do most good, publication in Dublin or the note on publishers” (CL374). The search for an Irish publisher undercut Yeats’s hopes for an early publication, but he wrote Lady Gregory on 1 June 1901 that “It will be very pleasant putting Beltaine together at Coole …” (CL3 77). On 3 August 1901, he informed Cornelius Weygandt that “‘Beltaine’ has not come to an end. A substantial number … will be issued in September but whether by its old publishers or not I cannot say” (CL3 100).
With the assistance of George Moore, who was no doubt ignorant of Yeats’s comment on 17 November 1900 that he might “write a whole number of ‘Beltaine’ about Moore” and the controversy over Diarmuid and Grania (CL2 589), it was agreed that the volume would be printed and published by Sealy Bryers & Walker in Dublin, with T. Fisher Unwin in London as co-publisher (CL3 115n1). The first number under this arrangement appeared in October 1901, but the title was no longer Beltaine but rather Samhain—Irish for “All-Hallowtide, the feast of the dead in pagan and Christian times, signaling the close of harvest and the initiation of the winter season lasting till May,” or as Yeats more cogently explained, “Hallow-Eve” (CL3 250). Yeats noted that “I have called this little collection of writing Samhain, the old name for the beginning of winter, because our plays this year are in October, and because our Theatre is coming to an end in its present shape.” One might also suspect that the new publishers did not object to the new name.
Priced at sixpence (as were the next three issues) and published in conjunction with the 21 October 1901 production of the Irish Literary Theatre, the inaugural Samhain (October 1901) at thirty-eight pages was a more substantial volume than even the second issue of Beltaine. In addition to essays by Yeats as well as by Edward Martyn and George Moore, it included both the Irish text and the English translation by Lady Gregory of Douglas Hyde’s The Twisting of the Rope (one of the two plays produced). The inclusion of both primary texts and criticism would continue in later issues of Samhain.
The volume enjoyed considerable success, as Yeats wrote to Lady Gregory on 19-20 January 1902.
I have just received through A P Watt an account of the sales of ‘Samhain’. They printed 2000 & have sold 1628 & sent about 100 out to review so they have only about 300 (rather less) unsold. Royalties amount to £5.14.3. which I shall ask A P Watt to send (minus his 10 percent) to the Sec of Gaelic League Dublin. (CL3 147)
On 12 April 1902, Yeats told F. J. Fay that “In the autumn I had better write a new Samhain” (CL3 173). Yeats corrected the proofs of the second number in late September and early October 1902 (CL3 234-35), and it was published in conjunction with the 29-31 October 1902 performances of the Irish National Dramatic Company. In addition to a reprint of part of an essay by AE, the October 1902 Samhain, now called “An occasional review,” included the text of Yeats’s Cathleen ni Hoolihan and another play in Irish by Douglas Hyde with translation by Lady Gregory, The Lost Saint.
By 13 September 1903, Yeats was correcting the proofs of the third number of Samhain, published later that month in conjunction with the 8 October 1903 production of the Irish National Theatre Society.2 In addition to essays by Yeats and A. B. Walkley, this number included the text of John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea as well as yet another play by Douglas Hyde with translation by Lady Gregory, The Poorhouse.3
The 1904 Samhain, published in December, was an expanded number—fifty-six pages and priced at a shilling—to celebrate the opening of the Abbey Theatre on 27 December 1904. In addition to three important essays by Yeats, the issue included the text of Synge’s In the Shadow of the Glen and Lady Gregory’s The Rising of the Moon as well as the letter from Annie Horniman offering “my assistance in your endeavours to establish a permanent Theatre in Dublin.” Promising on Christmas Day 1904 (in a letter dictated to Horniman) to send a copy to George P. Brett, Yeats described Samhain as “a publication I issue here in connection with my theatrical work” (CL3 690).
On 3 August 1905, Yeats told A. H. Bullen that he had “Samhain notes ahead of me.” (L 457). Published in November 1905, this Samhain reverted to its more typical size, thirty-six pages, and its traditional price, sixpence.4 A series of comments by Yeats was followed by the text of Lady Gregory’s Spreading the News and then of An Fear Siubhail, an Irish translation of Lady Gregory’s The Travelling Man by Tadg Ó Donnchadha under the pseudonym “Tóoacute;rna”—the first and only time that an Irish text would appear in Samhain without an accompanying translation.
Before the next issue of Samhain was published, Yeats began a new publication, at last with a title than everyone could understand and pronounce: The Arrow. These were shorter pamphlets, eight pages except for one issue of twelve, and they allowed Yeats to comment quickly on developments in the theatre. Promising that the new publication was “not meant as a substitute” for Samhain, Yeats explained its purpose in the inaugural issue of 20 October 1906:
It will interpret or comment on particular plays, make announcements, wrap up the programme and keep it from being lost, and leave general principles to Samhain.
The first number included three short essays by Yeats, as did the second number, published on 24 November 1906. Of this material, only part of “The Season’s Work” from the 20 October 1906 issue would be republished.5
Yeats then returned to the more elaborate format of Samhain with a volume published in December 1906.6 The contents would have come as no surprise to regular readers of Samhain: critical commentary by Yeats and the text of Lady Gregory’s Hyacinth Halvey. A new addition, however, was the list of “Dates and Places of the First Performance of Plays produced by the National Theatre Society and its Predecessors,” Yeats’s attempt to ensure that the history of the theatre movement would be written correctly.
Samhain was not published in 1907. Instead, Yeats reverted to The Arrow, publishing the third number on 23 February 1907 and the fourth on 1 June 1907. Sections of two of his three contributions to the earlier issue—“The Controversy Over ‘The Playboy’” and “Mr. Yeats’ Opening Speech at the Debate of February 4th, at the Abbey Theatre”—would be combined and reprinted, as was most of his only contribution to the later issue, “On Taking ‘The Playboy’ to London.”
Yeats’s vacillation between The Arrow and Samhain continued. The seventh and last regular issue of Samhain appeared in November 1908, the editor explaining that “There has been no SAMHAIN for a couple of years, principally because an occasional publication, called The Arrow, took its place for a time.”7 Along with two essays by Yeats as well as his “Alterations in ‘Deirdre,’” this volume offered the text of Lady Gregory’s Dervorgilla and a revised list of performances. Three portraits were also included, portraits having been a regular feature of Samhain since the third number in 1903.
Yeats’s career as a writer of theatrical pamphlets came to an end with the fifth and final number of The Arrow, published on 25 August 1909. Neither his joint statement with Lady Gregory about George Bernard Shaw’s The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet nor his “The Religion of Blanco Posnet” would be reprinted. As of 27 August 1909, Yeats was planning a new issue of Samhain, much of which doubtless would have been devoted to the controversy over the production of Shaw’s play on 25 August 1909. It was to offer “extracts from patent and show that Shaw’s play came within it”; it would also “insist on freedom from censor and quote basis in [W. J.] Lawrence’s article on censorship in Ireland.” More importantly, it would include “something … on the union of love of ideas with love of country. Easy to have one without the other, easy to hate one in service of the other, but if they are combined one gets a great epoch” (Mem 228-29). Unfortunately, for reasons not entirely clear, no regular issue of Samhain was published in 1909. Yeats would use the name in a series of fund-raising pamphlets, but for all intents and purposes what he once called “a little annual published in the interest of the [theatre] movement” had come to an end (Au 330).8
II. Friends and Enemies and The Collected Works in Verse and Prose (1908)
Yeats’s dramatic criticism would not remain only in pamphlet form for long. As early as 30 May 1905, he seems to have discussed a comprehensive edition of his canon with the publisher A. H. Bullen, telling Lady Gregory that he had agreed “to put off the expensive collected edition until next year” (L 449). The project began to move forward in 1907, helped by a surety from Annie Horniman.9 As of 12 July 1907, a five-volume Edition was projected, with the last to be Discoveries, “a book of essays, very largely theatrical” (L 488). Bullen was to have an active role in selecting the contents for that volume, as on 26 August 1907 Yeats asked him, “Would you mind looking through the Samhains that you have, and noting as you suggested what seems to you most suitable for the book of essays, and sending them to me?” (L 491). By 26 September 1907, the project had grown to seven volumes, but Yeats had yet to submit final copy for Discoveries (L 494). On 4 October 1907, Yeats attempted to spur Bullen to action:
By the by don’t forget that you have all my Samhains; you offered to look through them and make suggestions as to what extracts I should put into the book of essays. I wish you would do so as there is no reason why you should not, if there is enough material, which I am pretty confident there is, print the volume of criticism immediately after the volume of stories…. the sooner you send me these Samhains again with your suggestions the better. (L 497)
Bullen eventually complied, and Yeats wrote him in March 1908 that “I have looked through the Samhains and sent them but could you print in galley, as I think I shall interpolate a couple of controversial letters” (L 505). As it turned out, the production process was not without problems, as Yeats explained to Bullen’s assistant on 27 March 1908:
There has been a mix up in the Samhain proofs. First of all Mr. Bullen writes to me for the preface, which I sent you when I sent the copy. Secondly, an article of George Moore’s has been printed as part of the text. I don’t understand this, for I believe that I tore out from the Samhains my part of them, and sent that to you. Mr. Bullen may have copied my corrections into some other text, in which case please look up my original copy, and see if you can find the preface, which I don’t now remember. I think something must have gone astray for I suggested for this section the title Friends and Enemies. If Mr. Bullen prefers, he can call it The Irish Dramatic Movement, or Samhain, however. The preface was quite short, and can go at the back of the page which contains the title, as Mr. Bullen suggests. (L 506-7)
By 27 April 1908, however, Yeats could write John Quinn that the “collected edition is going to be a beautiful thing. I have seen the first specimen volume and am well content with my share of it and with Bullen’s” (L 509). The Edition was eventually published in eight volumes from September to December 1908. The Irish Dramatic Movement (the title apparently selected by Bullen) was the final item in volume four; published in October, it was the third of three volumes devoted to the plays.10
Yeats did not include any of the material from Beltaine in The Irish Dramatic Movement. “The Theatre” (May 1899) and part of “The Irish Literary Theatre, 1900” (February 1900) had been combined and printed as “The Theatre” in Ideas of Good and Evil (1903) and would therefore be found in volume six of the Collected Edition; and the essay “Maeve, and certain Irish Beliefs” (February 1900) had at best a tangential relationship to the drama. The remaining material was apparently considered too topical for inclusion. What Yeats did include were his major contributions to the Samhains of 1901-6 and to three of the five numbers of The Arrow (1906-7). The “couple of controversial letters” which Yeats had promised or threatened to include turned out to be two pieces from the 1903 United Irishman: “An Irish National Theatre” (10 October) and “The Theatre, the Pulpit and the Newspapers” (17 October).11 As we have noted, there was no Samhain in 1907, and the 1908 installment was not available until November, a month after volume four of the Collected Edition had been published. This omission of material from the 1908 Samhain was not to be rectified in Yeats’s lifetime.12
III. The Marble Quarryand Plays and Controversies
As early as 1912, Yeats was pressing Bullen for a revision of the Collected Edition.13 On 5 March 1913, he was delighted to inform Lady Gregory that “There is to be a refurbished edition of my collected edition, all pages I have re-written replaced, with illustrations…. The books will be rearranged, all the Samhains and theatre essays in general making up one volume….” (L 578). On 16 March 1913, he wrote the publisher as follows:
I have come to the conclusion that you had better start a new issue of the Collected Works with the volume of dramatic criticism … The reason why I suggest it coming first is that it contains matter which has never been reviewed and never been accessible in a volume by itself…. It would contain the only serious criticism of the new craft of the Theatre. It is the exact moment for it. (L 578-79)
In the event, however, Bullen declined to proceed with a revised Collected Edition.
A few years later, Yeats renewed his campaign to have his dramatic criticism available in a single volume. On 30 October 1919, Yeats’s agent, H. Watt, wrote to Macmillan (by then his primary English publisher) about a letter he had received from Yeats concerning three new books. The last of them had been described as follows:
‘The Marble Quarry’ (or it might be called ‘Irish Essays’) a volume of the dramatic criticisms in the Bullen collected edition with a longish introduction which is new and also some new criticisms. I think this book good and also likely to get well reviewed as it is topical both in relation to Ireland and to the stage. (BL 54898÷44)14
Apparently the “longish introduction” was never written; the “new criticisms” presumably refer at least in part to “A People’s Theatre,” soon to be published in two installments in The Irish Statesman (29 November–6 December 1919).
Macmillan was slow to take up the matter of the projected volume. On 16 November 1919, Yeats wrote again to Watt, indicating that he was “most anxious” about both Four Plays for Dancers and The Marble Quarry:
If these two books could be printed at once and proof sheets sent to Macmillan Company New York they might come out while I was in America and be helped by my lecturing tour!!! especially as I am lecturing on subjects connected with both.
He added that “In case of the ‘Marble Quarry’ (or ‘Irish Essays’ if preferred) I would have to revise two new essays myself, Macmillan’s reader could revise the rest” (BL 54898÷49-50). However, two days before Yeats’s letter, Macmillan had in fact replied to Watt’s of 30 October 1919, apologizing for the delay and suggesting a meeting to discuss the matter on 17 or 19 November 1919. Whenever they met, Macmillan must have declined to proceed with any of the suggested volumes. Yeats apparently did not take this rejection lightly, as witnessed by a letter from Macmillan to his agent on 14 January 1920:
I have had your letter of the 8th inst. and Mr. Yeats’s ‘copy’ lying before me for some time. It seems to me that the things as they stand are so slight that they could hardly be published as two separate books; but before settling anything I should like to see you on the subject. Could you conveniently call here, say, on Friday afternoon next between 3 and 4 o’clock. (BL 55559÷531)
It is uncertain (though quite likely) that The Marble Quarry was one of the items submitted, but it is clear that the meeting on 16 January 1920 did not result in Macmillan’s agreeing to undertake any of the three volumes Yeats had proposed the previous October.
The publication by Macmillan of The Irish Dramatic Movement therefore had to await the appearance of a new collected edition. Yeats had been anxious for some time about such a project, which had been a part of his agreement with Macmillan on 27 June 1916 (BL 54898÷138). Early in January 1922, Yeats sent to Watt a plan for a six-volume Uniform Edition. One of them was to be called Plays written in prose for an Irish Theatre; and The Irish Dra-matic Movement, Yeats explaining that
I have included in the third volume what I call the ‘Irish Dramatic Movement’, extracts from my defense of our Irish Theatre from year to year. I am particularly anxious at the moment to get them published in some marketable form. Hitherto they have only been published, apart from their publication in pamphlets when first written, in Bullen’s edition the volumes of which were not sold separately. (BL 54848÷55)
Watt forwarded Yeats’s letter to Macmillan on 10 January 1922; Macmillan replied to Watt on 12 January 1922, suggesting a meeting the following day (BL 55576÷106).
In the event, Watt was again not especially successful in convincing Macmillan of the wisdom of Yeats’s proposal. On 18 January 1922, Macmillan wrote to Watt offering to publish only three volumes of poems and plays:
We cannot however undertake at this point to publish any further volumes, and it must be distinctly understood that we are not to announce or bind ourselves in any way to issue more than the poetical and dramatic works. There is of course nothing to prevent the publication of three or four more volumes of prose in time to come if it seems reasonable. (BL 55576÷243)
Watt replied on 20 January 1922, reminding Macmillan of the 1916 agreement (BL 54898÷138). But the publishers were adamant: responding on 23 January 1922, two reasons were offered for the refusal to undertake a larger edition:
In the first place, if we were to announce an edition containing the prose works it would at once put out of action all the separate editions of the prose works which are now on sale and of which, as you know, we have a very considerable stock. Secondly, it would be impossible for us to publish as a complete work, and ask payment for it, the Large Paper Edition of the Poetical and Dramatic Works if, as you suggest, the publication of the prose works was announced but not immediately carried out.15
Further, Macmillan argued that “Unless I am very much mistaken Mr. Yeats himself suggested in a letter which he wrote about a year ago that the present publication should consist of the Poetical and Dramatic Works, so our proposal is not in any way new” (BL 55576÷381).16
Watt apparently replied on 6 February 1922 with a further suggestion from Yeats. Macmillan wrote to Watt on 10 February 1922 that
I think that we had better fall in with Mr. Yeats’s latest suggestion, which I take to be (1.) that we should publish a volume of poems to contain all the poems hitherto published by Mr. Yeats which are not included in Fisher Unwin’s volume; and (2) a volume of plays to contain what originally appeared under the title of ‘Plays for an Irish Theatre’ and such others of his plays as are at our disposal, which I take to be ‘The Golden Helmet’, ‘Unicorn from the Stars’ and ‘Pot of Broth’ (BL 55576÷875).
Thus both Later Poems and Plays in Prose and Verse were published by Macmillan on 3 November 1922.
Yeats persisted about additional volumes. On 4 January 1923, he asked Watt to propose to Macmillan “that they bring out two new volumes of their Collected Edition of my work,” describing the first as follows:
The Irish Dramatic Movement, this volume to contain all the dramatic criticism which I have published in pamphlet form during the fight for The Abbey Theatre and some criticism made later; it will also contain The Countess Cathleen and The Land of Heart’s Desire. (BL 54898÷217).
More than three years after he had first proposed the collection, Macmillan at last agreed to it in a letter of 9 January 1923 (55585÷13).17
By 19 March 1923, Yeats had completed preparing copy for the volume—which by then also included Four Plays for Dancers (1921) and was to be called Plays and Controversies. But this material did not reach the publishers for over two months.18 Forwarding the copy to Macmillan on 25 June 1923, Watt quoted from a letter “just received” which Yeats “wrote to me on 19 March but did not post”: “I send you the materials for the next volume in my collected edition” (BL 54898÷243-44). Macmillan acknowledged receipt of the copy on 27 June 1923 (BL 55589÷344) and did not delay long in putting the work into production. A problem with some errant proofs on 8 September 1923 (55590÷770) was quickly solved.19 Macmillan was able to inform Yeats on 29 November 1923 that “your book ‘Plays and Controversies’ was published on Tuesday last, November 27th, and we have sent you six copies, which we hope you safely received” (BL 55594÷271). Finally, The Irish Dramatic Movement was available to a wide audience.20
IV. The Edition de Luxe and the Scribner Edition
By February 1930, Macmillan had become interested in publishing a limited edition of Yeats’s major works. The project was discussed during the year, Yeats writing Olivia Shakespear on 27 December 1930 that “Macmillan are going to bring out an Edition de Luxe of all my work published and unpublished…. I am to be ready next autumn at latest. Months of re-writing. What happiness!” (L 780). The formal contract, dated 17 April 1931, was sent by Macmillan to Watt on 20 April 1931 (BL 55715÷241) and returned signed by Yeats on 4 May 1931 (BL 54901÷160).21 Macmillan undertook to publish the Edition no “later than the 30th day of September 1932”; as it turned out, the marginal addenda “unless prevented by circumstances over which they had no control” was to prove prophetic.
The second volume of the Edition de Luxe to be set in proof (Poems being the first) was a collection which other evidence indicates was called Mythologies and The Irish Dramatic Movement. The proofs were printed from 30 September to 26 October 1931 but were not sent to Yeats until 22 June 1932 (BL 55729÷605). Yeats returned the proofs of the first two volumes of the Edition de Luxe to Macmillan on 5 July 1932, indicating that “The volume called ‘Mythologies’ I need not see again. Your reader can complete the revision better than I could” (BL 55003÷129). Thomas Mark (Macmillan’s “reader”) had a new set of proofs prepared, but there is no evidence that these were sent to Yeats for additional checking (SR xxxviii and n44).
Over the next few years, Macmillan continued to postpone publication of the Edition de Luxe. In November 1935, Yeats received an offer from Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York to publish a similar edition in America. By May 1936, Yeats was “favorably inclined” towards the proposal.22 By early October 1936, the arrangements had been completed.
Yeats thus met with Watt on 23 October 1936 and asked him to obtain from Macmillan “a note of the contents of the De Luxe edition of his works which you are proposing to publish when the proper time comes” (BL 54903÷133), doubtless so that Yeats could ensure that the contents of the two Editions were essentially identical. Macmillan prepared two copies of a nine-page typed document headed “W. B. YEATS ÷ DE LUXE EDITION” and forwarded them to Watt on 27 October 1936 (BL 55786÷497), asking Yeats to annotate and return one copy and retain the other. Watt was able to send the copy with Yeats’s comments to Macmillan on 10 November 1936 (BL 54903÷148), Macmillan receiving it on 12 November 1936 (BL 55787÷362).
On this list, volume two is called “MYTHOLOGIES AND THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT,” the contents being “The Celtic Twilight,” “The Secret Rose,” “Stories of Red Hanrahan,” “Rosa Alchemica, The Tables of the Law, and The Adoration of the Magi,” and “The Irish Dramatic Movement.”23 Probably at some time after 14 November 1936, when Macmillan refused to let Scribner’s have their proofs for the Edition de Luxe (55787÷444-45), Yeats added a note indicating that they should take the text of The Irish Dramatic Movement from Plays and Controversies.
In January 1937, Yeats prepared tables of contents for the Scribner Edition and sent them to Watt, who forwarded them to New York on 28 January 1937. The list for volume two is typed “MYTHOLOGIES AND THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT,” but the first part of the title is revised in Yeats’s hand to “Mythical Stories” (Princeton). Scribner’s was unable to proceed with the project because they had not received copy, and a series of letters and cables ensued to both Watt and their agent in London, Charles Kingsley. Yeats may well have been at last spurred to action by a letter from Macmillan which he would have received on 7 June 1937 asking about additional poems for the Edition de Luxe (BL 55795÷298) as well as by his scheduled departure for London the next day. He thus took out his copy of the November 1936 Edition de Luxe list and made further annotations. After his departure, his wife prepared new tables of contents for the Scribner Edition, which she sent in segments to Watt, along with copy, from 11-22 June 1937.24
The list for volume two was forwarded to Yeats’s agent on 14 June 1937. It is headed “MYTHOLOGIES AND THE IRISH DRAMATIC MOVEMENT”: either Yeats had changed his mind about “Mythical Stories,” or he had forgotten about the revision. However, the table of contents for the volume prepared by Scribner’s after they received copy from Watt in July 1937 is untitled, perhaps indicating their confusion about the intended title.
In the event, neither the Edition de Luxe nor the Scribner Edition was ever published.
V. The Coole Edition
After Yeats’s death there occurred a flurry of activity on the Edition de Luxe, renamed The Coole Edition by Mrs. Yeats on 15 April 1939.25 A printed Prospectus was prepared and probably sent to Mrs. Yeats on 28 February 1939 (BL 55820÷203-05). The Edition had now grown to eleven volumes. The Irish Dramatic Movement was placed in volume ten, after Ideas of Good and Evil; the volume was the first of two called Essays and Reviews, but the titles of both were changed by Mrs. Yeats to, respectively, Essays and Essays and Introductions. Mythologies was now volume eight, with Per Amica Silentia Lunae replacing The Irish Dramatic Movement (BL 55890). The authority for this expansion and rearrangement is open to question. The editors of The Secret Rose have breezily indicated that the changes “had been instigated by Thomas Mark at the time of drawing up the ‘Preliminary Notice’” for the Edition: this is somewhat imprecise in detail and rather too categorical in assertion. It is at least possible that some of the revisions were agreed to during a meeting between Yeats and his publisher in London in late October or November 1938.26
Mark was able to send the proofs of the first volume of Essays to Mrs. Yeats on 26 June 1939, along with the 1931-32 Edition de Luxe proofs of Mythologies (BL 55826÷50).27 Apparently Allan Wade, who had published his first bibliography of Yeats in the 1908 Collected Works, was assisting Macmillan in the project, as on 5 July 1939 Mark forwarded to Mrs. Yeats a letter from him, “suggesting the addition of some further notes to the Irish Dramatic Movement in Volume X of the Coole Edition. Perhaps you will kindly let me know what you think of this idea, and perhaps send the material” (BL 55826÷298). What Wade had pointed out was the omission of any material from the 1908 Samhain in The Irish Dramatic Movement. Mrs. Yeats replied in a letter of 9 July 1939:
Mr Wade is quite right: that last Samhain essay was not included in the Irish Dramatic Movement when WBY re-published with Macmillan. I shall send you a typed copy tomorrow (I have only one printed copy available which does not belong to me, so cannot send it)….
The new section will be about nine pages of Coole Ed, and should come after the section dated 1907 (On taking the Playboy to London) present p. 475-6, and before “A People’s Theatre[”]. As all the pages in this vol will have to be re-numbered this will not
upset things very much?
It would be a pity to put it in the last volume XI, with the rather
miscellaneous collection that is there.28
Mark replied on 11 July 1939: “I note that you think the last Samhain essay should be included in the Irish Dramatic Movement and that you will be sending me the typescript. It will not greatly upset the volume” (BL 55826÷436). Two copies of Mrs. Yeats’s typescript survive, one in the British Library (BL 55897) and the other in the collection of Anne Yeats.29 On the same day Mark acknowledged receipt of the proofs (BL 55826÷436).30
It seems clear that there was no immediate attention given to the expanded version of The Irish Dramatic Movement. Mrs. Yeats had told Mark in a letter of 22 June 1939 that she would “be moving about July 23rd, and that will take a week”; in turn, Mark had informed her on 11 July 1939 that since he would be “starting my holiday on Saturday next [15 July 1939], you will not be troubled with any more proofs until the end of month.” True to his word, on 4 August 1939 he forwarded the proofs of Last Poems & Plays, “accompanied by the ‘copy’ supplied for Purgatory and The Death of Cuchulain” (BL 55828÷13). As that edition was his primary concern at the moment, it was not until 24-29 August 1939 that new proofs of The Irish Dramatic Movement, marked “Fourth Proof,” were prepared. Two sets are extant (BL 55897). There is no evidence that these proofs were sent to Mrs. Yeats at this time. Mark would have been unlikely to burden her with additional proofs while he awaited the return of the proofs for the new volume. When he finally received the corrected proofs of Last Poems & Plays on 19 October 1939, Mark had to inform her that the Coole Edition “has to wait for better times” (BL 55830÷334).31 Mark did not immediately abandon his work on the Edition, but it clearly became less and less of a priority.
VI. Explorations (1962)
No further activity about The Irish Dramatic Movement can be documented until late 1959 or early 1960, when Macmillan drafted a letter proposing a volume to be called Explorations, to follow Essays and Introductions (1961), then in page proof.32 Although the suggested contents differ considerably from what was finally included, The Irish Dramatic Movement was always planned as part of the collection. On 11 August 1960, Lovat Dickson sent Mrs. Yeats some of the materials for the projected volume, including the 24-29 August 1939 proofs of The Irish Dramatic Movement, and asked for a final list of the contents (NLI Ms. 30,755). Sometime after 19 April 1961, when Dickson wrote to spur her on, Mrs. Yeats provided the list and presumably returned the proofs. Explorations was eventually published in London on 23 July 1962.
There are two extant sets of the 24-29 August 1939 proofs of The Irish Dramatic Movement (BL 55897). These were corrected by Thomas Mark, most likely in 1939. Although there are no markings by Mrs. Yeats, she presumably did review the proofs in 1960-61. On the set she apparently was sent Mark had circled the second “m” in “M. Trebulet Bonhommie” and queried “correct? don’t know allusion.” Mrs. Yeats is the most likely person to have provided the correction to “M. Tribulat Bonhomet,” the reading on the 24 November-8 December 1961 galley proofs of Explorations (BL 55986).
Mrs. Yeats must have been sent a set of those galley proofs as well, but again there are no markings by her on the single extant set. The text was subject to further correction, but the extent of Mrs. Yeats’s involvement is unknown. One of the most significant changes occurs in the 1905 Samhain. Next to Yeats’s reference to “a nigger newspaper” is a query in red ink “? correct” and a note in pencil, “it was used in 1905.” Nevertheless, in Explorations the text is silently emended to “a negro newspaper.” Doubtless Macmillan would not have revised the text without seeking Mrs. Yeats’s approval, and thus one may assume that they received it.
It is quite clear, then, that Yeats last corrected the text of The Irish Dramatic Movement in late June÷early July 1932 for the Edition de Luxe, and those proofs have thus been used as the base-text for this edition.33 Other materials have been taken from the original publications. Further information is provided in “History of the Text” and “Textual Emendations and Corrections.”
NOTES TO INTRODUCTION
1 CL2 321. The policy of The Collected Letters to attempt to reproduce Yeats’s erratic spelling has not been followed in the case of obvious and distracting errors, such as “to geather” for “together.”
2 Allan Wade, A Bibliography of the Writings of W. B. Yeats, 3rd ed., rev. Russell K. Alspach (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968), 248, records a second issue of this Samhain in October 1903.
3 In The Irish Dramatic Movement, Yeats included two letters from The United Irishman—“An Irish National Theatre” (10 October 1903) and “The Theatre, the Pulpit and the Newspapers” (17 October)—both headed after the 1908 edition “Samhain: 1903.” However, neither piece had been included in that volume. CL3 439n1 incorrectly states that the earlier letter was included in Samhain.
4 For this issue, the Dublin imprint was that of Maunsel & Co. and the English imprint that of A. H. Bullen, though the printing continued to be done in Dublin by Sealy, Bryers & Walker.
5 The Berg Collection at the New York Public Library also has a one-page “Supplement to ‘The Arrow,’” dated 8 December 1906, which offers an engraving of Queen Elizabeth by William Rogers and “Captain Headley’s Song” from Lady Gregory’s The Canavans.
6 For this issue, the only imprint is that of Maunsel & Co.; the printing was again by Sealy, Bryers & Walker. A variant cover for this number is reproduced as the last item in the facsimile edition of Samhain with an Introductory Note by B. C. Bloomfield (London: Frank Cass, 1970). A parallel facsimile edition of Beltaine by the same publisher was also issued in 1970.
7 For this issue, the Dublin imprint is that of Maunsel & Co., the London imprint that of T. Fisher Unwin. The printing again was the work of Sealy, Bryers & Walker. If and when The Collected Letters reaches 1906-8, the reason for these annual shifts in publisher may become known.
8 Yeats issued a series of fund-raising pamphlets in 1909-10 in an attempt to recover the anticipated loss of Annie Horniman’s subsidy of the Abbey Theatre: Paragraphs from the Forthcoming Number of ‘Samhain’ ([September?] 1909); Paragraphs from ‘Samhain’ 1909 ([December 1909?]); Supplement to Paragraphs from ‘Samhain,’ 1909 / February 21st, 1910 ([March?] 1910); and Paragraphs Written in Nov., 1909, with Supplement and Financial Statement ([March?] 1910). The Wade Bibliography records only the first and last of these; I am grateful to Colin Smythe for further details.
9 See Foster, 371. Bullen requested a surety of £1,500 (599n64). Foster’s statement that “Since January 1907 discussion had been under way” about the Collected Edition (371) apparently overlooks the 1905 letter to Lady Gregory.
10 Yeats’s earliest choice for the title, Discoveries, had been used for a 1907 Cuala Press edition of essays, included under that title in volume eight of the Collected Edition.
11 Yeats may have had second thoughts about including this material. Foster quotes a letter of 8 May 1908 in which Yeats “complained about ‘fragments of letters reprinted from the United Irishman (just where mistakes are most likely & mistakes that might be very injurious to me for I have quarreled with the paper & its party)’” (372).
12 For Yeats’s contributions to Beltaine and the uncollected material from Samhain and The Arrow, see pp. 141 ff.
13 “… he plagued his publisher with demands for addenda or—better still—revision of the sheets which were not yet bound” (Foster, 457).
14 The other volumes were Four Plays for Dancers, eventually published by Macmillan on 28 October 1921, and The Player Queen, eventually published by Macmillan in Plays in Prose and Verse on 3 November 1922 as well as in a separate volume on 21 November 1922.
15 In a letter of 18 January 1922, Macmillan had indicated that they were “prepared to publish a Definitive Edition of the Poems and Plays in three volumes” and that “we should also propose to issue an edition limited to 250 copies on large paper to be sold only in sets at a higher price” (BL 55576÷243-44).
16 Macmillan is referring to an alternative proposal which Yeats had made in a letter of 23 December [1920]: “Another scheme would be to bring out ‘Collected Poetical Works of W B Yeats’ in 3 vols (1 of lyrical & narrative work & 2 vols of plays) and to leave the prose works till later. The objection to this is you will hardly want to include contents of ‘Four Plays for Dancers’ (this however might be added in a fourth volume some years later or as a new section at end of vol 3 when the present edition is ex[h]austed” (BL 55003÷65).
17 Macmillan was no doubt motivated by the fact that “We have sold over 1,200 copies of Later Poems and over 900 of Plays in Prose and Verse” (BL 55585÷13).
18 Ann Saddlemyer has suggested to me that the delay was probably due to Mrs. Yeats’s being in isolation with scarlet fever, as it was she who usually looked after such matters as the posting of materials. It is also possible that Mrs. Yeats delivered the copy to Watt herself, as she was in London until at least 23 June 1923.
19 See BL 54898÷249-50 and 252.
20 The American edition of Plays and Controversies did not appear until 16 September 1924, the delay perhaps caused both by the new printing and by the simultaneous publication of a signed limited edition of 250 copies.
21 I am grateful to Linda Shaughnessy of A P Watt Ltd for a copy of the contract.
22 Letter from John Hall Wheelock of Scribner’s to Yeats, 26 May 1936 (Princeton). Wheelock is quoting what he heard from “my friends, the Colums” (the Irish writer Padraic Colum and his wife).
23 Further evidence that the title of the volume had never been simply Mythologies is found in a letter from Macmillan to Yeats on 15 April 1932, citing the various volumes in the Edition de Luxe: volume two is called “Mythologies, etc.” (BL 55727÷271). Although the first page of the 1931-32 proofs is headed “MYTHOLOGIES” and has “Vol II” in the lower left-hand corner, that does not indicate that Mythologies was the title for the entire volume. The proofs begin with gathering B and do not include a title page or a table of contents, and this was the standard practice with the Edition de Luxe proofs. For example, the 21 December 1936 proofs of the first volume of Plays starts with gathering B with the title The Countess Cathleen and with “vol. III” in the lower left-hand corner. Yet the volume as a whole was of course not called The Countess Cathleen.
Finally, one should observe that rather than writing a new Note for a supposedly unified volume of Mythologies, Yeats simply reprinted his note on the fiction from Early Poems and Stories (1925) and supplied a new comment on The Irish Dramatic Movement, separating the two notes by a considerable degree of white space. The cross-reference in the second note to the fiction is doubtless an attempt to explain why two different kinds of work were published together. Yeats was well aware of the necessity of making the seven volumes of the Edition de Luxe approximately equal in size—on 7 May 1931 he had asked Macmillan to let him know the number of pages in the Uniform Edition of 1922-26 so that he could arrange the contents for the new Edition (BL 55003÷121)—and it is clear that anyone attempting to apportion the canon as of 1931 would inevitably face the same predicament that Yeats did, with the fiction too short to stand by itself and an orphaned Irish Dramatic Movement.
24 Two copies of this list are in National Library of Ireland MS 30,202. A copy of the list sent to Watt, made by Kingsley, is in the Princeton University Library. The materials sent to Scribner’s are in the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas. The copy submitted for The Irish Dramatic Movement consisted of uncorrected pages from the London edition of Plays and Controversies. Had the Scribner Edition gone forward in his lifetime, Yeats would of course have corrected proofs, and the resultant text of The Irish Dramatic Movement would surely have differed from that found on the corrected page proofs of Mythologies. But since that process did not occur, the Mythologies proofs embody Yeats’s last known corrections to the text.
25 Letters from Mrs. Yeats to Macmillan are in the archives of Macmillan, London (now Palgrave).
26 SR xxxviii. The rearrangement and expansion were first made not on the printed Prospectus with the indication of “Preliminary Notice,” which is headed “The Collected Edition of the Works of W. B. Yeats” (Princeton), but rather on an earlier state of same headed “The [blank space] Edition of the works of W. B. Yeats” (BL 55890). The “Preliminary Notice” version was in print no later than 25 March 1939, when a copy was sent to Scribner’s; it was doubtless approved at the meeting between Mrs. Yeats and Macmillan in London on 17 March 1939. The earlier version, which has “Mrs Yeats” in orange crayon on the top, was almost surely sent to her on 28 February 1939, although Macmillan’s letter refers only to a “list” and a “second list” (BL 55820÷203-05). It is clear, however, that an expanded Edition was projected as of that date, Macmillan writing that “We have now planned it as eleven volumes, provisionally arranged as shown on the list I enclose.”
It is not impossible that Macmillan may have undertaken the expansion of the Edition de Luxe on their own authority. But to disassemble a volume which Yeats had carefully read and corrected—and especially to add to what remained a new work, subsuming it under Yeats’s title Mythologies—without the approval of Yeats would have been a rather atypical occurrence. In accord with their usual practice, they would have first consulted with Mrs. Yeats, which would have been unlikely in the weeks immediately after Yeats’s death and for which there is no evidence; or they would have called her particular attention to the rearrangement in their letter of 28 February 1939, which they did not. One must therefore consider the possibility that the rearrangement had been approved by Yeats.
A comment on BL 55896 (the 24 November-8 December 1961 galley proofs of Explorations) indicates that Yeats met with his publishers when he “was passing through London 1938 before his last visit to France.” Yeats was in England from 26 October 1938 until 26 November 1938. Ann Saddlemyer, who has graciously supplied those dates, has suggested that the meeting with Macmillan would have occurred on either 26 October, 15 November, or 25 November 1938, with the last the most likely. Whatever the precise date, by the time of the meeting it would have been self-evident that the materials which Macmillan recently had published or were aware of had made a seven-volume Edition de Luxe all but impossible, and at least a general discussion of how to proceed would have been an important item on the publisher’s agenda. They would have been delighted to get Yeats’s agreement in principle for a revised and expanded project, as this would have greatly increased the “divergence” between their Edition and the Scribner Edition that they had always desired. As far as they knew, the Scribner Edition (still in seven volumes) was in active preparation, so their more expansive project would quite trump the Americans when the time came. Indeed, when Charles Kings-ley discovered a notice of an eleven-volume Edition in The Bookseller (30 March 1939), he wrote John Hall Wheelock on 4 April 1939 that “It rather looks to me as if they [Macmillan] had put a fast one over on us” (Princeton). To their rather belated credit, Macmillan—of course aware of the forthcoming printed announcement—had in fact informed Scribner’s of the extent of their Edition a few days previously, in a letter of 27 March 1939 (Princeton).
Unfortunately, there appears to be no record of what transpired at the 1938 meeting, so the possibility that Yeats approved any or all of the revisions to the Edition remains no more than that, as does the assertion that all was done solely by Macmillan.
27 Mark sent proofs of three volumes, the others being Mythologies and Discoveries (i.e., volumes 8, 9, and 10 of the Edition de Luxe as then constituted). Of Mythologies, it has been argued that “The new proof must have been a marked set of the ‘revise’ of the 1931-32 proofs prepared at Mark’s request after Yeats had returned them” (SR xxxviii), but this is quite unlikely. Since the contents had changed so drastically, Mark surely would have had a new set of proofs produced, with Per Amica Silentia Lunae in place of The Irish Dramatic Movement. Since it is improbable that any further revisions had been accomplished on the 1932 revised proofs, Mark would have considered them irrelevant, which would explain why they apparently were not preserved. The proofs of The Irish Dramatic Movement included in Essays, likewise not known to be extant, thus would have been a “Third Proof,” which explains why the extant 24-29 August 1939 proofs of the section are marked “Fourth Proof.”
28 Mrs. Yeats’s comment is somewhat misleading. As we have noted, since it had not been in print at the appropriate moment, nothing from the 1908 Samhain had been included in volume four of the Collected Works in Verse and Prose. Yeats apparently overlooked the omission when both Plays and Controversies (1923) and the Edition de Luxe proofs of Mythologies (1931-32) were produced. Wade’s suggestion of the addition of further “notes” may indicate that he recommended the inclusion of both “Events” and “First Principles” from the 1908 Samhain, though obviously Mrs. Yeats authorized the incorporation of only the latter.
29 In A Descriptive Catalog of W. B. Yeats’s Library (New York & London: Garland, 1985), 236 (item #1827), Edward O’Shea mistakenly describes this posthumous typescript as corrected by Yeats.
In the process of checking for material from the 1908 Samhain, Mrs. Yeats would have come across the revisions to The Irish Dramatic Movement in Yeats’s copy of the Collected Works in Verse and Prose. She must have supplied these to Mark, as they are incorporated in the 24-29 August 1939 proofs, even though the revisions had been superseded by Yeats’s later corrections. Probably at the same time, she drew on the 1908 changes in preparing a corrected text of the 1924 New York edition of Plays and Controversies, no doubt as revised copy for the Scribner Edition. If that volume was sent to Scribner’s, it must have been returned, as it is preserved in Yeats’s library.
30 The fact that neither set of the third proof of The Irish Dramatic Movement apparently survives suggests that they were subject to little if any correction. Once both Mark and Mrs. Yeats were aware of the omission of material from the 1908 Samhain, it was clear that the proofs would have to be superseded by a new set.
31 There is no record in the Macmillan Letter Books of the period of the dispatch or receipt of the 24-29 August 1939 proofs of The Irish Dramatic Movement. Moreover, had Mark received corrected proofs from Mrs. Yeats, his usual practice would have called for the production of a revised set, which is not known to exist.
It is also clear that around this time Mrs. Yeats began to be less responsive to Mark’s letters. On 31 August 1939, for instance, he sent a set of page proofs of Last Poems & Plays to Yeats’s agent, complaining that “The press proofs were sent to Mrs. Yeats for approval on August 4th, and we have not had any reply from her” (BL 55828÷511). When he finally received the proofs from Mrs. Yeats on 19 October 1939, he informed her rather curtly that they “were just in time, as the book was about to go to press” (BL 55830÷334). On 12 February 1940 Mark again complained to Yeats’s agent about Mrs. Yeats: not only had she failed to return the signed contract for the American edition of Last Poems and Plays, but also “I have written to her several times about some outstanding proofs of the big edition of her husband’s works, but have had no reply” (BL 55834÷522-23). The state of things during the rest of the decade can be reconstructed from a letter to Yeats’s agent from Macmillan on 12 May 1949: “Mrs. Yeats has written from time to time about certain details to Mr. Mark, who has been preparing the book [Poems (1949)]. It is so satisfactory for her to write and answer letters that I have rather encouraged her without bothering you; you will remember how difficult we found it to get a reply from her.” Ann Saddlemyer’s Becoming George: The Life of Mrs. W. B. Yeats (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) details her myriad responsibilities during these years.
32 The draft letter, probably composed by Lovat Dickson of Macmillan, is now found in BL 55986, the 24 November 1961-8 December 1961 galley proofs of Explorations.
33 Mrs. Yeats apparently retained these proofs in 1939. In “Yeats Digitally Remastered,” Yeats Annual No. 14 (2001), Warwick Gould has recently congratulated himself and the other co-editors of The Secret Rose for “the discovery of the 1931-32 page proofs of Mythologies and the Irish Dramatic Movement and the subsequent establishment of the copy-text of The Secret Rose” (346). Leaving aside the fact that the proofs had never been lost—having been in the care of, in order, Macmillan, London; Mrs. W. B. Yeats; and Senator Michael B. Yeats, until Senator Yeats donated them to the National Library of Ireland—this statement rather overlooks the citation of the proofs and an indication of their relevance to the text of Yeats’s work in The Prose Fiction of W. B. Yeats: The Search for ‘Those Simple Forms’ (Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1973), 40.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF W. B. YEATS
VOLUME VIII