Foster, R.F.; Yeats, William Butler; Bornstein, George

W.B. Yeats: A Life (Two Volumes) with: Ephemera

New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press, 1997/2003. First U.K. Edition. Hardcover. "A poet is by the very nature of things a man who lives with entire sincerity, or rather the better his poetry the more sincere in his life; his life is an experiment in living and those that come after have a right to know it." (W.B. Yeats, epigraph). Irish historian R.F. Foster’s (b. 1949) W.B. Yeats: A Life is a two-volume, meticulously researched biography that repositions one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), not just as a poet, but as a central figure in Irish cultural & political life. The first volume [A], The Apprentice Mage (released 1997) follows Yeats from an unstable, genteel-but-broke Anglo-Irish childhood through his self-invention as a poet. The through-lines are his immersion in occultism and the Golden Dawn, his central role in the Irish literary revival and the founding of the Abbey Theatre, his nationalist entanglements, and the long obsession with Maud Gonne. It ends in 1914 with Yeats accomplished but not yet the poet posterity most values. Volume two [B], The Arch-Poet, (released 2003) includes: the 1916 Easter Rising and its transformation of Yeats' politics & verse; his marriage to George Hyde-Lees and the automatic writing that produced the esoteric system of his A Vision; his senatorship in the Irish Free State; his 1923 Nobel Prize; the flirtation he had with authoritarian & eugenic ideas in the 1930s; his late-in-life erotic & self-renewing poetry and his death in France in 1939. The pair together are widely considered the definitive biography of Ireland's national treasure. With former University of Michigan professor George Bornstein's handwritten marginalia throughout both volumes, including post-its at pgs. 481, 495 & 625 and a Borders bookmark between pages 576 & 577 in volume I and a post-it at pgs. 762 & 763 & a 5 x 7 index card with handwritten notes betwixt pgs. 164 & 165 of Volume II. From the collection of the late, great George Bornstein (1941-2021), scholar, author & academician here at the University of Michigan- a quintessential Man of Letters & W.B. Yeats' biggest bibliophile. Third Mind Books has found & retained a plethora of ephemera (all folded horizontally 1x) included with each volume, including: [A] two typed two-page letters (stapled) to the Irish Times dated March 4, 1997 & March 21, 1997, from a Jack Kolb & a Sam McCready respectively; pgs. 155-160 from The Atlantic Review's review of the title from November 1997; 3 xeroxed reviews from New York Times Book Review (April 6, 1997), London Review of Books (March 1997) & the Irish Literary Supplement (Spring 1997); a four page review of Volume II (stapled) by Declan Kiberd ("25/09/2003") & a handwritten letter to George Bornstein signed ("Roy") & dated ("26-vii-96') in vivid black ink by author of these volumes R. F. Foster, with a "Hertford College" header printed at top right corner of recto; [B] a xeroxed copy of a different, shorter Yeats biography by Foster from "The Dublin Review" (Summer 2003); a Bornstein review from the Univerisity of Michigan Press (Volume XIV, 1996); 2 xerox copies of a review from "Irish Literary Supplement" (Spring 2005); xeroxed reviews from "Biography" (September 26, 2003) & The New York Times Book Review (December 4, 2003); pages 95-100 of the review from "Harper's Magazine" & a three page (stapled) essay from John Hewitt. [A] Volume 1: Hardcover in unclipped Dust Jacket: First U.K. Edition per copyright page, first printing per number sequence thereon. [B] Volume 2: Hardcover in unclipped Dust Jacket: First U.K. Edition per copyright page, first printing per number sequence thereon. A most collectible bundle of scholarly biography in one of its rarest contemporary forms with relevant association & very distinguished provenance, greatly enhanced by the plethora of professorial ephemera. Both books [A] & [B] in relatively fine-to-very fine condition with mild rubbing & spot-staining to front, back covers & spine; mild creasing to fine edges of same; mild rubbing & age-toning to text block. Interior of books fine-to-very fine with mild age-toning mostly to blank margins & fine edges of pages; at top corner of half-title page of Volume I [A], Bornstein has handwritten his ownership, date & place in pencil: "George Bornstein | May 1997 | Ann Arbor." Dust Jackets fine-to-very fine with mild age-toning, scratching & rubbing to front, back covers, spine & flaps; mild-to-moderate creasing/rubbing to fine edges of same; two microscopic enclosed tears to bottom fine edge of dust jacket [A]; original seller's barcode sticker ($45.00; "Bornstein, George") affixed to bottom back cover near spine of dust jacket [B]. Fine-Very Fine / Fine-Very Fine. [Item #9198]

Price: $80.00