Irish Fairy and Folk Tales

First assembled in the late 1880s, this is Yeats's compilation of Irish oral and printed lore rather than a book of his own lyrics. He groups stories of trooping fairies and solitary ones, changelings, the banshee and the pooka, ghosts, witches, giants, Tir na nOg, and saints who outwit the sidhe. The tellers and earlier collectors include Croker, Hyde, and Lady Wilde; Yeats introduces, arranges, and occasionally retells. Settings are cabins, forts, lakes, and roads at dusk. The book is an annotated folklore anthology, not a novel and not a selection of Yeats's poems.

Bound in red cloth, cover blocked and printed with design in black, silver and metallic green by Farquharson. Silver endleaves. Black slipcase.