The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W. B. Yeats.
New York, NY: The Macmillan Company, 1957. First Edition. Hardcover. Large, thick, octavo. pp. xxxv (i), 884pp. Original publishers buckram: red spine over tan/grey boards, gilt titling to spine. Top edge tinted blue. Edition limited to 825 copies, SIGNED by W.B. Yeats, this being copy number 153. An extraordinary piece of scholarship: the editor's intention was not simply to collect together all of Yeat's published poems, but to note and reproduce all the changes that he made to them throughout their successive printings.
As is well-known Yeats (1865-1939) had a lifelong interest in the occult, mysticism, mythology and astrology, and was for a time a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an involvement which led him into conflict, and a short magical spat, with Aleister Crowley. Needless to say Yeats' esoteric interests were reflected in much of his poetry. The book was of course issued posthumously, Yeats had signed the limitation sheets well before his death in 1939, but the Fates intervened and the sheets were not used until the publication of this work in 1957. The book was issued without dust jacket, but in a plain, cream, paper-covered slip-case. The slip case is solid and intact, although quite darkened and grubby, with a couple of faint pen marks, and a few tiny tears to the paper at the edges. It has, however, done its job of preserving the book very well. The volume has one very faint inch-long vertical line in the spine (either a flaw in the fabric or a very light scratch) and there is a small, slightly darkened patch to the front board - again possibly a natural flaw in the coloring of the cloth. Otherwise it is a bright, tight, clean, near-Fine copy. Item #72579
Price: $1,250.00