The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats

Limited to 825 copies signed by Yeats. This is copy is #772.

Edited by Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach. Thick 8vo. Original two-toned cloth, in publisher's slipcase. New York 1957.

The planning of this volume originated in the late 1930s. With World War II looming and Yeats' fragile health, it was decided to have the limitation pages signed by the poet then, before publication. The final edition was delayed until 1957, further compounded by the death of Allt in 1954.

Included are: Preface, Introduction, Bibliography, Collations, Appendices, Index to Titles, and Index to First Lines. This is the definitive variorum edition of Yeats' poems. It was the editors' intention to note all of the changes that Yeats made to his poems in the course of their successive printings. The record begins in 1885 with the edition of The Dublin University Review, which contained his first two published poems. It ends with the two-volume definitive edition of his poetry in 1949, the proofs of which he had corrected shortly before his death in 1939. Poems that were published separately are included here in the section entitled "Poems Not Included in the Definitive Edition."

Some slight soiling, o/w clean and bright. Scarce.