YEATS, W.B. John Sherman and Dhoya, by Ganconagh. [TWO FAIRY TALES ROOTED IN IRISH MYTHOLOGY]

London: Unwin, 1891. First edition. Tall octavo. pp. [ii], 196. Original buff cloth, spine and cover lettered and ruled in blue, publisher’s device in blue in rear cover. Top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Yellow ticket of Bristol Bookseller on front pastedown. Signature of M. Williams, dated 1893 on front free endpaper, neat pencil annotation to titlepage. Mild foxing to endpapers. A near fine copy. Extremely rare in this condition.
Wade 4. See illustration on previous page.
Yeats’ first extended prose publication. He choose “Ganconagh”, the name of an Irish fairy, as his non de plume. Symons and Wade, the poet’s earliest bibliographers, note a total edition of 2,000 copies, of which 365 were bound in cloth. That figure is disputed by Richard Finneran. Published in Unwin’s Pseudonym Library [No.10]. Yeats stated that this was “Written when I was very young & knew no better. Ballah is the town of Sligo where I lived as a child - a vague impression of it but I think a true one”. In this novel the hero must choose between life in London and life in Ireland, and between a posh Englishwoman and his Irish sweetheart. John Sherman leaves Ballah (Sligo town) to work in London, but in the end his Irish sweetheart wins out. A near fine copy of this great rarity.