The Cutting of an Agate: Signed by Yeats, notes included

Yeats, William Butler

• The first UK edition: The Cutting of An Agate.
• Here with connected notes, inscribed and signed by Yeats in black ink on paper.

Description

Original blue cloth on boards; with an attractive design and lettering in gilt by Thomas Sturge Moore.

• Binding tight and the spine is square. A name plate is on the inside from cover; from a previous collector and therefore neat. Clean throughout, if only for a little rubbing to the extremities and head. Better than very good indeed.
• First edition, first published in the UK in 1919, some 7 years after the true first, US edition; and both thus differ considerably.
• The notes are approximate extracts from the text, in Yeats' hand and signed at the top; likely thus related in some way to the alteration of the 1912 US edition. Of which change there were many.
• These extracts are of Yeats' meditation on the works of Homer, Blake and Spencer in particular, who were profound influence on Yeats.
• Containing also an error somewhat characteristic, though for that is its charm.

The spelling contained is rather a testament to the Yeats' genius. It had been documented, especially in recent years, that Yeats did have a form of dyslexia. This made his early studies difficult-going. Yeats himself once wrote explaining this: "I had to give a whole evening's work to one lesson." And: "my father had come to think I had not all my faculties."

This made for arduous revisions of his work. Several research papers have posthumously determined also difficulties with spelling, memory and self-concept. Which obstacles of life were overcome by Yeats.

Line 6 of these notes reads: "expericence", and in the printed text is corrected. Much more than that, its is a unique window into a magnificent intellect. An intellect of a man whose schoolwork was reported "very poor" and yet, went on to win The Nobel Prize in literature in 1923.

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