A.E. [RUSSELL, George W.] Collected Poems (SIGNED AND WITH ORIGINAL SKETCH)

London: Macmillan, 1926. First collected edition. pp. xv, 275. Octavo. Blue cloth, title in gilt on spine. Signed by the author on the title-page “George Russell ‘AE’,” with an original pen-and-ink landscape drawing by A.E. beneath the title (a Donegal scene). Contemporary ownership inscription to the poet and editor Nellie Barnes, dated “1926 – November,” with an explanatory note on the front endpaper: “Drawing on the title page is of Donegal. Made by A.E. at Mr. W. Johnson’s [house] on April 3, 1928. Lawrence Kansas.” A fine copy, the binding fresh and square, light toning to the paper, the drawing and signature bold and well preserved.

George William Russell (1867-1935) was born in Lurgan, and after the family moved to Dublin he was educated at Rathmines School and the Metropolitan School of Art where he became friends with W.B. Yeats. His play Deirdre was one of the first to be staged by the ‘Irish Literary Society’, forerunner of the Abbey Theatre. He was a founder of the ‘Irish Theosophical Society’, and from 1923-30 was editor of The Irish Statesman. Yeats said of his poetry “the most delicate and subtle” that any Irishman had written in his time. Also an artist, he kept open house in Dublin for the intelligentia of the day.
An unusually rich association copy of A.E.’s Collected Poems, bringing together autograph signature, original artwork, and contemporary literary provenance. The pen-and-ink drawing, identified here as a Donegal landscape, directly reflects Russell’s lifelong visionary response to the County Donegal, a terrain central to both his poetry and his symbolic imagination. Signed copies of the Collected Poems are uncommon; copies containing original artwork by A.E. are distinctly rare. This example stands as both a definitive poetic text and a unique, self-illustrated witness to Russell’s creative world in the final decade of his life.
George Russell, poet, painter, and mystic known as “Æ,” had a deep connection to Donegal, frequently holidaying and painting its landscapes, capturing its mystical atmosphere and inspiring local enthusiasts and modern commemorations, highlighting his role in the Celtic Revival through both his art and cooperative activism in rural Ireland. Russell painted many Donegal scenes, often featuring mystical figures in fairy glens or ethereal beachscapes, reflecting his spiritual beliefs and the Celtic revival’s focus on Irish folklore.

[CAT 163]