GREGORY, Lady. Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The story of the men of the Red Branch of Ulster arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory.

With a preface by W.B. Yeats. London: John Murray, 1902. First edition. pp. xvii, 360, 4 (Publisher’s list). Original blue cloth, design and lettering in white on upper cover, lettered in gilt on spine with design in white; silk marker; top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed. A fine copy.
Wade 256.
“From around 1901 on Lady Gregory began to pursue her own creative opportunities even more energetically. Her redaction of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, published in ‘Kiltartan’ English as Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902), was fulsomely praised by Yeats as the best Irish book of his time, and became a vital source of legendary and imaginative material for him” [ODNB]. “I THINK this book is the best that has come out of Ireland in my time. Perhaps I should say that it is the best book that has ever come out of Ireland; for the stories which it tells are a chief part of Ireland’s gift to the imagination of the world and it tells them perfectly for the first time ... .” W.B. Yeats. Most copies of this influential book are well-read, and it is not often found in near fine condition.

[Porch E]