JOHN KELLY is Professor of English at Oxford University and General Editor of the 12-volume Collected Letters of W.B.Yeats. He has published widely on Anglo-Irish and Modernist literature, and has recently selected and introduced the twelve volumes of the Hibernia: Literature and Nation in Victorian Ireland series.

General Editor's Preface Introduction and Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations and Works Cited A William Butler Yeats Chronology Index Index of Titles

W.B.Yeats, one of the greatest poets who wrote in English, was also a playwright, theatre director, essayist, Senator, and life-long occultist. He knew practically every important figure in the cultural and public life of his time, including Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Eamon de Valera. In recording the details of these relationships and tracing his prolific literary output, this book is a vivid witness to an extraordinarily important, rich and crowded life, as a context for his work.