The Land of Heart’s Desire
Chicago: Stone & Kimball, [1894]. Single volume, measuring 6.75 x 4 inches: [iv], 43, [5]. Original grey paper boards, printed pastedown label to spine. Pictorial frontispiece, printer’s device to title in red. Gift inscription, dated 1905, in ink to half-title. Lightest shelfwear, stray ink mark to upper board.
First American edition of W.B. Yeats’s first staged play, one of 450 copies, with title mis-dated 1814, published three months after the first English edition. A landmark of the Celtic Revival, The Land of Heart’s Desire is set in rural Sligo: “The characters are supposed to speak in Gaelic.” Marie Bruin, a young wife, is lured away from her domestic responsibilities and Catholic faith by the promises of a mysterious fairy child, despite the efforts of her family and priest to keep her grounded: “You shall go with me . . . / Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood, / But joy is wisdom, Time an endless song. / I kiss you and the world begins to fade.” In addition to being the first American appearance of Yeats’s play, this volume represents the first sole Chicago imprint of Stone & Kimball, founded in Cambridge, and the first use of that firm’s specially watermarked paper. Stone & Kimball helped shape the aesthetic movement in America, most notably through their publication of The Chap-Book, with its graphic cover designs by Will Bradley. Aubrey Beardsley’s striking frontispiece, which depicts Marie peering out from behind a translucent curtain, is taken from the original poster for The Land of Heart’s Desire at London’s Avenue Theatre. Wade 11; Kramer 25; Samuels Lasner 62. A near-fine copy of the book that introduced Yeats’s stage work to America.
Price: $500.00