Collection of Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) Books Given to S...

Hammer

€1,050

Collection of Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) Books

Given to Sylvia (OBrien) Reynolds by her aunt Elinor (OBrien) Wiltshire (1918-2017) Elinor OBrien (later Wiltshire) and Patrick Kavanagh already knew each other by 1949 and became good friends when they both lived on Pembroke Road, and the friendship continued when she and Reggie Wiltshire lived on Raglan Road (see references via index to Elinor Wiltshire and Reggie Wiltshire in Antoinette Quinn (2001) Patrick Kavanagh, a biography). Elinor and Reggie established and ran The Green Studio (a photographic studio) from c.1954 and they married in 1955. There are many photographs of Patrick Kavanagh taken by Elinor in the 'Elinor Wiltshire Collection' at the National Photographic Archive, National Library of Ireland, e.g. taken on the 50th anniversary of Bloomsday in 1954 and in the potato field in Co. Monaghan in 1963 - a number of which have been much used by the Irish Times etc. Several photographs of Patrick Kavanagh are included in Orla Fitzpatrick (1999) If ever you go to Dublin town; photographs Elinor Wiltshire. Reggie also accompanied Patrick Kavanagh during his libel action in the High Court in 1954 (see picture in Evening Mail cutting), and PK wrote an appreciation of Elinor's father H.M.V. OBrien in the Irish Times 7 June 1955.


Kavanagh (Patrick). Come Dance with Kitty Stobling and other Poems. Longmans 1960, first ed., brown cloth gilt in glassine d.w. (small portion of glassine torn from top, else a fine copy). Price label attached to f.f.e.p. Signed on prelim, ‘Patrick Kavanagh for Reggie & Elinor Sept. 1960’ with a curious drawing (in something like the style of Giacometti) showing a stooping figure offering a book. (1)