1915 · Churchtown
by [Yeats, Jack Butler, 1871-1957]
Churchtown: E, C. Yeats at the Cuala Press, Churchtown, Dundrum, County Dublin, 1915. Very Good. Jack W. Yeats. Each number consists of a single sheet folded to form four pages. The final page is blank on all issues. Issues generally feature three illustrations, with the smaller 2 usually hand-colored and the largest in black and white. The larger picture is one of the two handcolored in three of the numbers present. One issue has four small hand-colored illustrations and no large one, colored or uncolored. 28 cm. Tear in right margin and another in left margin on both leaves on one issue -- Fifth Year, No. 2 (July, 1912). Chipping and soiling in top margin one issue -- Seventh Year No. 5 issue (Oct., 1915). Also some other lesser soiling, browning and wear but overall a nice group of these highly collectible Cuala Press publications. These were found by us in a worn portfolio in blue cloth, and lacking the ties, with a small (and now chipped) handcolored illustration (a pirate playing a mandolin) mounted on the front cover. This portfolio was apparently a Cuala Press production since Falvey Library at Villanova University displays an identical portfolio case (in much better condition) in their online material about Jack Butler Yeats and the first 84 issues of A Broadside. All of the illustrations in these issues were done by Jack B. Yeats. It is apparently unclear whether Jack or others at Cuala Press did the handcoloring of the illustrations. All issues were limited to 300 copies. Elizabeth ("Lolly") Corbett Yeats, identified as E. C. Yeats on the first page of each issue, as publisher of these issues, was the sister of Jack and W. B. Yeats. The poetry and ballads, mostly about Ireland and the Irish, were selected by Jack from a variety of sources, perhaps sometimes from his own pen. This group of issues includes a few poems (or ballads) about America or Americans ("Jesse James," "The Old Chisholm Trail," "Fuller and Warren," and "The Banks of the Sacremento [sic]"). Jack ended his involvement with A Broadside in 1915. W. B. Yeats acted as editor of the Second and Third Series of "A Broadside."
(Inventory #: 94519)