THE UNICORN FROM THE STARS AND OTHER PLAYS.
Yeats, William Butler, and Lady Augusta Gregory:
New York: The Macmillan Co., 1908. Blue cloth, spine elaborately gilt after a design by Althea Gyles, t.e.g., fore-edges rough-trimmed, lower edges untrimmed. Fore-edge foxed lightly, a few minor spots to lower board, otherwise fine. First edition (after a copyright printing). One of 1200 copies printed. Lady Gregory's copy, with her bookplate. Inscribed: "Lady Gregory from WB Yeats July 7, 1905." The title play to this collection is the only published work to bear both their names as coequal collaborators. The title play was essentially a rewriting of WHERE THERE IS NOTHING, and in a letter to A.H. Bullen (12 February 1908, LETTERS, 1954, p.503), Yeats noted: "Though THE UNICORN is almost altogether Lady Gregory's writing it has far more of my spirit in it than WHERE THERE IS NOTHING which she and I and Douglas Hyde wrote in a fortnight to keep George Moore from stealing the plot...I planned out THE UNICORN to carry to a more complete realization the central idea of the stories in THE SECRET ROSE...." WADE 73.
(Item ID: WRCLIT61108) $30,000.00
Inscribed to Lady Gregory in Collaboration