Broadsides. A Collection of Old and New Songs 1935
Dublin: The Cuala Press, 1935. Single volume, measuring 11.5 x 8.25 inches: [56]. Original linen-backed blue paper boards, printed pastedown title label to upper board, blue endpapers. Foreword signed by W.B. Yeats and F.R. Higgins; engraved musical staves and twenty-four hand-colored line block illustrations throughout text. Pencil inscription to front blank: “Iona Craig gave me this book in 1936.” Spine ends and edges lightly rubbed, crease to front free endpaper.
Signed limited first edition, one of 100 copies, of this collection of musical broadsides celebrating the history of the Anglo-Irish ballad: “In town and country alike, as in the old English carols, every song is a narrative.” Issued monthly throughout 1935, the broadsides feature new verses by contemporary Irish poets, paired with traditional ballads set to music by Arthur Duff. Featured poets include W.B. Yeats, F.R. Higgins, and Padraic Colum. The hand-colored illustrations, which recall the simple woodcuts that decorated the “slip songs” of earlier centuries, are the work of Jack B. Yeats and other contemporary Irish artists. In forging connections between “old and new songs,” between folk tradition and modern art, these broadsides exemplify the Celtic Revival ambitions of Elizabeth Yeats’s Cuala Press, and represent a continuation of her first series of 84 broadsides, issued between 1908 and 1915. Three hundred copies of each broadside were printed, and one hundred were bound and signed by W.B. Yeats and F.R. Higgins. Wade 249. A near-fine copy of a beautiful book, a landmark of the Irish literary revival.
Price: $3,500.00