IRISH - LADY GREGORY (author). Margaret GREGORY (illustrator). The Golden Apple; A Play for Kiltartan Children. London; John Murray. 1916.
Small 4to. Original dark green cloth pictorially blocked and lettered in brown; pp. [vii] + 107; with 8 coloured plates by the author's daughter Margaret Gregory; an attractive copy with a small dint to centre of spine, a small knock to upper forecorners, and and a bruise to bottom forecorner of upper board, internally clean and crisp throughout, without ownership marks or inscriptions.
First edition. A poetic children's play and an important work by this leading figure in the Irish Revival.
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (1852-1932) was a renowned translator of old Irish legends, a dramatist, and a theatre manager, who became an influential friend and patron of William Butler Yeats, collaborating with him on several plays. With Yeats and their mutual friend Edward Martyn she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre for which she wrote a number of short works. Although she was not born of nationalist stock she turned against British rule and embraced cultural nationalism which drove the themes in her writings. She developed an idiomatic Irish style, often called "Kiltartanese". This particular work is dedicated to George Bernard Shaw ("the gentlest of my friends").
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