Dedicated to Her Lover Gregory, (Lady Augusta) Spreading th...

Hammer

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Dedicated to Her Lover

Gregory, (Lady Augusta) Spreading the News: The Rising of the Moon: The Poorhouse (with Douglas Hyde).  Being Vol. IX of the Abbey Theatre Series.
Dublin: Maunsel 1906, First Edn., orig. printed brown wrappers with the Abbey's wolfhound device. Spine neatly repaired, else v.g.
Presentation copy, boldly inscribed Lady Gregory on title page 'to John Quinn, that Wonder of the Western World,' dated July 1906.
With John Quinn's bookplate (Designed by Jack Yeats and printed by Cuala Press) laid in, and with the original envelope front, stamped and franked, addressed in Lady Gregory's hand to Quinn in New York.

The friendship between Lady Gregory and the American lawyer John Quinn was important and long-lasting. On his first Irish visit of 1902, she took to him immediately, brought him to Coole and (with the Yeats brothers) introduced him to all the major personalities in the literary movement. He became effectively the Abbey's American agent, organised their tours there (spending much of his own money on their behalf), and defended them in court over the Playboy affair. In another dedication she describes him as 'best friend best helper these half-score years on this side of the sea,' During the Abbey tour of1910-11, Quinn and Lady Gregory had a brief love affair (she described it later as 'a rapture of friendship') remaining close friends afterwards. When Yeats and Quinn fell out (over another woman), it was Lady Gregory who arranged a reconciliation. Of all Quinn's Irish friends and clients, Lady Gregory was the only one with whom he never became impatient or disenchanted.
Lady Gregory's inscription here appears to be a reference to Synge's Playboy, which did not have its first performance until January 1907. Presumably it was already in rehearsal.
An association copy of great interest and importance.
This copy was No. 3605 in the sale of Quinn's Library (1923). (1)