Cathleen ni Houlihan

First edition thus. Sm. 8vo. 16pp. Publisher's grey-green wraps. Originally published in the October 1902 issue of the theatrical periodical Samhain, followed by The Caradoc Press limited edition of the same year. This is the first theatre edition.

Some discolouration to wraps' edges, closed tears to spine tips, odd spotting to textblock, with tipped-in half page to rear, noting foreign translations of some of his plays.

A one-act play co-written by an uncredited Lady Gregory, as a star vehicle for Maud Gonne, it premiered at St. Teresa's Hall, Dublin, on April 2, 1902. Centring on the 1798 rebellion and frequently revived at the Abbey until WWII, Yeats writing in The United Irishman in 1902, asserted "My subject is Ireland and its struggle for independence." Yet, in one of his last poems, "The Man and the Echo", a reflective Yeats wondered, 'Did that play of mine send out / Certain men the English shot?'

[Wade 62]