I began to make this bibliography a good many years ago, putting into an old note-book a list of all the writings of Mr. Yeats that I knew, and adding others from time to time, as chance led me to find them in newspapers or periodicals. I had no thought in doing this but my own pleasure, and it is with a kind of wonder that I see my notes taking the form of a book or part of a book at Mr. Bullen’s beautiful Shakespeare Head Press.
I do not think the arrangement of the bibliography needs any explanation. I have not found it possible always to identify the first appearance of poems and essays, particularly in the earlier collections; nor have I thought it necessary to include a reference to every letter written by Mr. Yeats to the Press, since many of these have dealt merely with small points of fact in this or that controversy of the moment. But otherwise I have tried to make the work as complete as possible, and have given many details to serve as guides to those who would study the path along which beauty has come into the world. I have watched the roses blossoming in the garden, though I may not know the secret of their growth.
My thanks for help and suggestions are due to Mr. Yeats himself and to Mr. A. H. Bullen, Mrs. Tynan Hinkson, Miss A. E. F. Horniman, Mr. John Masefield and Mr. T. W. Rolleston. The details of the American editions of Mr. Yeats’s books have been kindly supplied by Mr. John Quinn of New York.
ALLAN WADE.
June, 1908.
Accursed who brings to light of day
The writings I have cast away!
But blessed he that stirs them not