Item 38 - Letter from William Butler Yeats

7 pp; manuscript

A letter from William Butler Yeats, 4 Broad Street, Oxford, to Miss [Barmer?]. Yeats refers to the delay in publishing his ‘collected edition’ due to ongoing work on his memoir. Yeats adds ‘if one has a position as a poet, the public is much more interested in one’s opinion on many useless things than in one’s poetry and yet if they did not think one a poet they would not be interested’. He also provides advice in relation to obtaining the best editions of his books. He refers to his ‘just published “Four Plays for Dancers”’ (1921). Other publications Yeats mentions include ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ (1919) and ‘Poems’ published by T. Fisher Unwin. Yeats writes ‘The truth is my publishing arrangements are at sixes and sevens because I am letting works go out of print for the sale of this new collected edition’. He finishes by giving advice on the amount of money his correspondent should spend on previous editions of his books.

William Butler Yeats resided at 4 Broad Street in Oxford for about five years from 1918. See https://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/broad/buildings/south/04.html

For biographical information on William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) see https://www.dib.ie/biography/yeats-william-butler-a9160