[Rarebooks] FS: Intriguing Inscribed W. B. Yeats First Edition

[Charles Agvent]

 From our internet-only Catalogue of New Arrivals for September: 
Faulkner, Yeats, etc. now posted on our web site:
http://www.erols.com/agvent

YEATS,  W.  B.  THE  KING'S THRESHOLD:  AND  ON  BAILE'S
         STRAND:  BEING  VOLUME THREE OF PLAYS FOR AN  IRISH  THEATRE.
         London:  A.  H.  Bullen 1904. First Edition.  Original  green
         linen-backed  gray paper boards with paper spine label.  Wade
         56. Published  in  March 1904. This copy while not signed  by
         the author  is  INSCRIBED by him on the front  endpaper:  "To
         MD/for  her  [his?] birthday/Mar 1904." An educated guess  is
         that MD  might  stand for the actress Miss Darragh  [Florence
         Laetitia  (Dallas)  Darragh),  an established figure  on  the
         London  stage  who appeared in the Dublin 1906 production  of
         Yeats's  plays  DEIRDRE  and THE SHADOWY WATERS and  of  whom
         Yeats thought  very  highly. Another possibility  is  Michael
         Davitt,  the  Irish  Nationalist, whose birthday was  on  the
         25th of  March  and who died in 1906. Adding to the  intrigue
         is an old  pencil  note in an unidentified hand on the  front
         pastedown:  "pres. copy for Stephen Gwynn." Gwynn, author and
         Irish nationalist,  was  a champion for Yeats.  According  to
         the DICTIONARY  OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY, "In spite of his  book
         Irish Literature  and Drama (1936) and some early association
         with the  Irish  Players in London, Gwynn himself had  little
         to do with   drama,  and  stood  apart   from  the  fame  and
         influence  of  the  Abbey Theatre." Perhaps the  most  likely
         possibility  is the illustrator and playwright Mabel Dearmer,
         a very  close  friend of Gwynn's who died while serving  as a
         nurse in  World  War  I.  Gwynn  wrote a  memoir  of  her  in
         Dearmer's   posthumously  published  LETTERS   FROM  A  FIELD
         HOSPITAL.  Thus the pencil note related to Gwynn could  refer
         to his  receiving  the book from Dearmer or from a member  of
         her family  after  her  death. An altogether  Very  Good  and
         intriguing copy.                                     $3500.00

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CHARLES AGVENT 
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Mertztown, PA  19539-8750 
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