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First edition. Hard cover, 12mo (5 x 6 1/2 inches), in quarter linen over green-grey illustrated paper covered boards with an art nouveau inspired image of a cloaked woman playing an Irish harp upon a rocky outcropping shaded by a fruited cornucopia of trees, printed in dark grey. Signed "B" for Will H. Bradley in lower right of illustration. Printed and applied paper label to the spine. Very small vintage bookstore label to inside front cover near gutter. Dedicated to W.B. Yeats. Printed at Will Bradley's The Wayside Press in Springfield, Massachusetts 1897 as on the Bradley designed and printed colophon at rear of publication. WHB also designed the tree art on the illustrated title page, printed in green. Contains fifty-five verses by the multi-talented Irish poet "Æ," or George William Russell (1867-1935): lifelong friend of Yeats, poet, playwright and author, painter, mystic, co-operative farmer's organizer and, later, editor of "The Irish Statesman," a man whom his son described as "having a vast compassion for all men." **CONDITION: Near Fine. Very clean, light wear at tips, small chips missing on spine label. A few spots of very light foxing within. A few pages are over-opened. Still, a very nice and clean example. **Of American artist, printer, book designer and typographer WILL H. BRADLEY (1868-1962), bibliographer Will Ransom said: "There was another man who, like Charles Ricketts, had printing done under his supervision, mostly for commercial purposes but with an occasional book, but who contributed largely to the typographical awakening [of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,] of the time. Perhaps, under other circumstances, Will Bradley, whose personal work bore the imprint of the Wayside Press, might have done as much creative work in book design as his contemporaries across the sea, for he was, and still is, a designer of marked originality and sound taste." The Wayside Press makes this a Massachusetts imprint, although Bradley would work internationally as well as in Boston and New York. (p. 73). REFS: Bambace, A15. W. Ransom (1929) pp. 73, 445. Please read a wonderful biographical article about the poet written by his son, Diarmuid Russell in the Feb. 1943 issue of "The Atlantic." (AMJ)
Ref: ILLWHB 9708
$185.00