Owned and inscribed by the author, composer, and Professor of English at the University of Connecticut George Brandon Saul (1901-1986) in red ink on the front free endpaper, and with his detailed verbal annotations in red, green, and blue ink scattered throughout. These comprise meticulous bibliographical corrections and additions, numerous quotations from other scholarly and original sources, as well as the occasional new insight: for example, “Query: Is there a vague possibility that Y[eat]’s Well may have been suggested by the richly dissimilar ‘well of knowledge’ of Manannan?”. The different inks demonstrate that Saul returned to his text on numerous occasions, progressively recording new thoughts and information. Also tipped in are two manuscript notes with a few additional references, as well as two letters to Saul, one in manuscript from Margot Wa***[?] on headed notepaper bearing the address “346a King’s Road, Chelsea” dated February 1959 offering effusive praise for the book, and another, typed, from fellow-scholar Col. Russell K. Alspach dated August 1960 pointing out a couple of minor bibliographical errors, tipped-in to the front pastedown and p.40 respectively. To the second letter, Saul has added his lengthy, chatty response in red ink. Also attached is Saul’s typed response to these errors (beginning “Mea Culpa – lest scholars – or any others be led into error”), with a couple of manuscript additions, which was later published under the title ‘W. B. Yeats: Corrigenda’ in the journal
Notes and Queries (Aug. 1960).
A nice example of a scholar’s ongoing engagement with their own monograph, revealing the collaborative conversations that often take place in the development of academic publications.
A highly detailed scholarly companion to the reading and study of W. B. Yeats’s plays.
DESCRIPTION: First edition. Author’s own copy. Publisher’s original dark blue cloth with titles in gilt to the spine. A very good copy, the binding square and firm. The contents with some tape-marking to a few page edges from the inserted letters (see below) are otherwise in very good order.
