[Lady] Augusta
Gregory (1852-1932)
Life
[Lady Gregory; née Isabella Augusta
Persse;] b. early moments of 15 March 1852, twelfth of 16 children
and 7th dg. of Dudley (d. 1878) with his second wife Frances of
Roxborough [House; destroyed in 1922], nr. Loughrea, South Co. Galway;
her mother was a passionate proselytiser; a high-spirited girl,
she experienced religious scruples in adolescence; m. at twenty-eight
to Sir W. H. Gregory, then a sixty-three year-old widower, former
gov. of Ceylon and Trustee of the National Gallery and MP for Galway
(d.1892), 4 March 1880, St. Mathias, Hatch St., Dublin (before rector
Canon Wynne); settled in London, where the Gregorys salon
was frequented by Browning, Tennyson, Millais, Henry James, and
others; summered at Coole Park [ note],
nr. Gort, Co. Galway, barony of Kiltartan; a son, Robert, b.1881
- Sir William privately wishing that he were shut up for seven years;
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shared diplomatic station with Sir William
in Alexandria, and during that time conducted a love-affair with
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, 1882-83, writing the poems he later published
as A Womans Sonnets, as if his own; assisted Blunt
in the defence of [Ali] Arabi Bey; issued Arabi and His Household
(Times, 23 Sept. 1882); commenced her diary (1892-1902) on
the death of her husband; travelled solo to Inisheer, Aran Islands,
and experienced awakening of interest in folklore; collected folktales,
often in the Gort workhouse (a scenario rehearsed by Sean OFaolain
in The End of the Record) and learnt Irish; the Hiberno-English
dialect of her own Galway locality; anonymously published an anti-Home
Rule pamphlet entitled Home Ruin (1893); met W. B. Yeats,
1896, and received a brief visit at Coole; commenced collecting
folk-lore in Kiltartan region with W. B. Yeats, 1896; established
Irish class at Coole schoolhouse; met Douglas Hyde, 1897; first
of twenty summers spent by Yeats at Coole, 1897; |
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planned a Celtic Theatre with Edward Martyn
and Yeats at Durras [var. Dorcas] House, property of Count de Basterot,
and Coole Park, 1897 [though 1898 in her own account]; fnd. Irish
Literary Theatre, 1899-1901, later Abbey Theatre Company, of which
she held the patent (dated 20 Aug. 1904) and which she directed
with Yeats and Synge; edited nationalist essays by Yeats, AE, D.
P. Moran, George Moore, Douglas Hyde, and Standish James OGrady
as Ideals in Ireland (1901), gathered from journals incl.
chiefly New Ireland Review and the Leader; made a
translation of the Ulster saga as Cuchulain of Muirthemne,
with a preface by W. B. Yeats (1902), dedicated to the people
of Kiltartan, and using Kiltartanese Hiberno-English dialect
(plain and simple words, in the same way my old nurse used
to be telling me stories from the Irish long ago, and I a child
at Roxborough) - largely faithful to the original while reducing
Cuchulains warp-spasm (Kinsella) to a heros
halo); described prefatorily by Yeats as the best [book]
that has come out of Ireland in my time - a phrase that Joyce
later ridiculed in the Telemachiad episode of Ulysses
(1922); |
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her translation of Casadh an tSugain
(1901) as The Twisting of the Rope appeared in Samhain,
No. 1 (1901); issued Poets and Dreamers (1903), containing
translations of Raftery, folk-tales, and translations of short plays
by Hyde, and greeted as the greatest book to come out of Ireland
in our time by Yeats in a review in Bookman (May 1903),
a phrase ridiculed by Joyce in Ulysses; wrote letter with
George Russell, Yeats, and others, to Freemans Journal
and Irish Times seeking support for Hugh Lane Collection
(Dec.-Jan. 1904); issued Gods and Fighting Men (1904), based
on mythological cycle and cycle of the kings; issued A Book of
Saints and Wonders (1906) which narrates in Kiltartanese lore
of St. Brigit, St. Patrick, St. Colum Cille, the voyages of Maeldune
and Brendan, the Old Woman of Beare, and Great Wonders of
the Olden Time, sourced in Irish folk-tales and learned journals
but also from local people around Coole; |
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she began writing plays by helping Yeats with
the peasant dialogue of his plays and in effect co-authoring Cathleen
Ni Houlihan, The Pot of Broth (3 Oct. 1902), and Where
There is Nothing, et al.; her first play, Twenty Five
(1903), was produced with Yeatss The Hour-Glass; she
opened the Abbey Theatre - successor to the Irish Literary Theatre
- with Spreading the News (28 Dec. 1904), performed along
with Yeatss On Baile Strand; supported Synge against
Catholic-nationalist opposition to his Playboy of the Western
World (1907), but did not admire it as Yeats did;wrote nineteen
original plays and seven translations for the Abbey, 1904-1912,
incl. several examples of Kiltartan Molière such
as The Doctor in Spite of Himself (1906), The Rogueries
of Scapin (1908), The Miser (1909), and The Would-Be
Gentleman (1923); |
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her plays in the vein of folk history
incl. Kincora (Abbey Th., 25 March 1905), on Brian Boru;
The White Cockade (1905); The Canavans (1906), set
in Elizabethan times; and The Rising of the Moon (1907),
in which a patriotic RIC-man lets a Fenian escape from the guarded
quayside, written with Hyde; also with Hyde, The Poorhouse
(3 April 1907), later called The Workhouse Ward (1908), in
which the scolding paupers were a symbol of Ireland, acc. Lady Gregorys
notes; issued Dervorgilla (1907), on the wife of Demot MacMurrough;
also The Deliverer (1911), an allegory of Home Rule set in
Egypt; also The Image (1909) and Damers Gold
(1912); MacDonoughs Wife (1912), written aboard ship
en route to America; |
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starts collecting notebook materials from
Irish peasantry using leisure, patience, reverence and a good
memory (Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland,
p.15); and Grania (1911), all later collected as Irish
Folk History Plays (1912); her later comedies incl. Hyacinth
Halvey (Feb. 1906) which provides comment, acc. to herself,
on the tendency for reputations in Ireland to be built up
or destroyed by a password or an emotion, rather than by experience
and deliberation; published The Kiltartan History Book
(1909), The Kiltartan Wonder Book (1910); produced Shaws
Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet in defiance of Dublin Castle,
1909; |
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birth of Richard Graham Gregory, at Coole,
to Robert and Margaret, 1909; a 20 p.c. rent reduction application
made to the Land Commissioner, Gerald Fitzgerald, was allowed to
Coole Park fifteen tenants, 30 July 1909, occasioning Yeatss
poem [Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation]; called
Guiding Genius of Abbey by the New York Dramatic
Mirror, during an American tour 1911-12; had a brief sexual
affair with John Quinn, in New York, 1912; issued a history of the
national theatre as Our Irish Theatre (1913); threatened
to sue George Moore for references to her mother as a prosletyser
for the religion of the extreme Irish evangelical school
in Vale (1914); travelled to America on tour again, 1915;
underwent mastectomy under local anaesthetic; |
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wrote Shanwalla (1915), a ghost story
staged by Hugh Lane; exempted by IRA from big-house attacks; issued
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, 2 vols. (1920),
which incl. two essays by W. B. Yeats on the material included in
it; objected to Black and Tan brutality in Co. Galway in anonymous
articles published in The Nation, Oct. 1920-Jan. 1921; establish
Irish PEN, a branch of the world-wide writers association,
1921; her monologue, An Old Woman Remembers (1923), recited
by Maire ONeill in the Abbey; The Story Brought By Brigid
(Abbey 1923), a moving play; late plays incl. Sanchas Master
(1927) and Dave (1927); wrote the history of her home in
Coole (1931); sold Coole Park to Forestry Commission, 1927,
receiving life tenancy at lease-back of £100 p.a.; took title role
in Cathleen Ni Houlihan for three performances of the play
shortly after her 67th birthday (18-21 March 1919), saying, After
all, what is needed but an old hag and a voice; |
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professed herself with the Nationalists
all through - more than they know or my dearest realise; d.
small hours of 22-23 May; bur. with her sister Arabella, New Cemetery,
Galway; Coole Park sold and stripped of lead, being pulled down
in 1941 [err. 1942]; an Autograph Tree preserves initials
of Yeats, Synge, Russell, Hyde, Moore, OCasey, Shaw, and many
others (though of women only Lady Sackville and Countess Cromartie);
most of her works were published in New York by Putnam a little
in advance of the London edns. from the English company of the same
name, the latter keeping her plays in print to the mid 1960s; the
Berg Collection at the New York Public Library acquired most of
her papers, incl. all but one vols. of her diaries (the first being
in Emory), from the family in 1964; remaining stock of titles, primarily
plays, held by her London publisher purchased by Colin Smythe in
1965; |
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Colin Smythes bibliographical collection
of c.150 vols. incl. first edns. with numerous other issues and
impressions sold to the UCG library, 1975-76; there is portrait
in oil by John Butler Yeats in the National Gallery of Ireland and
another dated 1905 by Antonio Mancini in the Municipal Gallery;
George Moore called Lady Gregorys Kiltartanese a Kiltartan
three-hole whistle; Synge told her, Cuchulainn
is still part of my daily bread; Gogarty asserted, the
perpetual presentation of her plays nearly ruined the Abbey;
there is a portrait of 1908 by Antonio Mancini in the Municipal
Gallery of Ireland; Lady Gregory was the subject of Fire in
the Blood with Derbhle Crotty as narrator in the first of
four films on the Irish Literary Revival produced by RTÉ1
(Mon. 29 Feb. 2016). JMC ODNB NCBE IF DIW DIB DIH DIL OCEL KUN
FDA KUN OCIL FDA |
[ top ]
Works
Plays (selected among 40 others) |
- Spreading the News (Dublin: Maunsel 1904; London &
NY: Putnam 1909);
- Kincora: A Play in Three Acts [Vol. II of Abbey Ser.;
2nd edn.] (Dublin: Maunsel 1905);
- The Rising of the Moon (Abbey 1907);
- The Workhouse Ward (Abbey 1908);
- Hyacinth Halvey (NY: Quinn 1906; Dublin: Maunsel 1910);
- The Image: A Play in Three Acts (Dublin: Maunsel 1910);
- Irish Folk History Plays [First Series] (London &
NY: Putnam 1912);
- Irish Folk History Plays [Second Series] (London &
NY: Putnam 1912);
- McDonoughs Wife [first pub.] in New Irish Comedies
(NY & London 1913);
- The Image and Other Plays (London & NY: Putnam 1922);
- The Dragon: A Play in Three Acts (London & NY: Putnam
1920; Talbot 1920);
- The Story Brought by Brigit: A Passion Play in Three Acts
(London & NY: Putnam 1924).
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[ top ] |
Prose |
- Arabi and His Household (priv. 1882) [on Arabi Bey, one
of the colonels in revolt];
- Over the River (priv. 1887), pamphlet for poor South
London parish of St. Stephens, Southwark [vide Among
the Poor in Seventy Years, autobiography];
- A Phantoms Pilgrimage, or Home Ruin (London: Ridgeway
1893) [anon. pamphlet against Gladstones 2nd Home Rule Bill];
- Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red
Branch of Ulster [... &c.] (London: John Murray 1902)
[see more under Mythological writings, infra.]
- Poets and Dreamers: Studies and Translations from the Irish
(London: Murray; Dublin: Hodges & Figgis 1903), and Do.
[rep. edn.] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1974) [see details];
- Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan
and of the Fianna of Ireland, Preface by W. B. Yeats (London:
Murray 1904), 446pp. [see more under Mythological writings, infra.].
- A Book of Saints and Wonders, put down here by Lady Gregory,
According to the Old Writings and the Memory of the People of
Ireland (Dublin: Dun Emer Press 1906), and Do., enl.
edn. (London: John Murray; NY: Scribners 1907), [200 copies],
and Do. (rep. 1908);
- Seven Short Plays (Dublin: Maunsel 1909), ded. to W.
B. Yeats;
- The Kiltartan History Book (Dublin: Maunsel 1909), 4
ills. by Robert Gregory; Do. [another edn.] (1923);
- Kiltartan Poetry Book: Translations from the Irish (London
& NY: G. P. Putnam 1919),and Do. (NY: Knickerbocker
Press 1919) [available at Google Books online;
accessed 28.10.2010];
- A Book of Saints and Wonders (Dundrum: Dun Emer 1906,
enl. 1907);
- Our Irish Theatre: A Chapter of Autobiography (NY: G.
P. Putnam 1913; London: G. P. Putnam 1914)., pb.; Do. (NY:
Knickerbocker Press 1914), v, 319pp.; Do. [rep. edn.] (London:
Capricorn Books 1965); Do., foreword by Roger McHugh (Gerrards
Cross: Colin Smythe; NY: OUP 1972);
- Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland (London: G.
P. Putnam 1920), with notes by Yeats; Do. [rep. edn.] (Colin
Smythe 1970);
- Hugh Lanes Life and Achievement, with some account
of the Dublin Galleries (London: John Murray 1921) [Jan. 1921],
ill.;
- Case for the Return of Sir Hugh Lanes Pictures to Dublin
(Dublin: Talbot Press 1926), 48pp., ill. [pl., port. facs.] [22.5cm];
- Edward Malins, ed. & intro., Lady Gregory, Coole
(Dublin: Cuala Press 1931) [ltd. 250 copies], 72pp.; Do.,
completed from the manuscript and edited by Colin Smythe, with
a foreword by Edward Malins [Dolmen Edns. 10] (Dolmen 1971), 105pp.
[ltd. edn. 1,050], 108pp. [2 extra chaps. adding to 3, 4 &
5 prev. printed in 1931; p.27-28]; and Do., with Coole Park,
a poem by W. B. Yeats]. [facs. of 1931 edn.] (Shannon: IUP 1971),
[4], 51pp.
- Seventy Years: Being the Autobiography of Lady Gregory
(Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1974, 1976), xvi, 583pp.
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Mythological
writings
|
- Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red
Branch of Ulster arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory,
with a pref. by W. B. Yeats (London: John Murray 1902) [Yeats
Pref. listed as Wade 256 [var. 258], Do. [another edn.]
(London: John Murray 1934), xvii, 360pp.; Do., and a
foreword by Elizabeth Coxhead [Coole Edition 2; [1st edn. 1902;
prev. edn. 1911] (Gerrards Cross: Colins Smythe 1970, 1973),
272pp.and Do. [another edition, with Gods and Fighting
Men] (London: Slaney Press [Reed Consumer Press] 1994),
550pp., pp.[327]-550 - see details];
Do., [5th edn.], [with a foreword by Daniel Murphy [Coole
Edition - 2 Edition] (Oxford & NY: OUP 1970), 272pp., ill.
[port.], 23 cm.;
- Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan
and of the Fianna of Ireland, arranged and put into English
by Lady Gregory; with a preface by W. B. Yeats Preface by W.
B. Yeats (London: John Murray 1904), 446pp.; Do. [other edns.
(1905 [1910]); and Do., a foreword by Daniel Murphy [Coole
Edition 3] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1970, 1976. [see reprints
as Irish Myths and Legends, 1998, &c. - infra].
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Edited collections
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- Ed., Ideals in Ireland: A Collection of Essays Written by
AE and Others (London: At the Unicorn VII Cecil Court 1901)
[contribs.: AE [George Russell] (Nationality and imperialism),
D. P. Moran (The Battle of Two Civilizations, George
Moore (Literature and the Irish Language), Douglas
Hyde ( What Ireland is Asking For), Hyde (The
Return of the Fenians, Standish J. OGrady (The
Great Enchantment), W. B. Yeats (The Literary Movement
in Ireland), and Yeats (A postscript) - see
note].
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Gregory Papers
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- Ed., Sir William Gregory, KCMG, formerly member of Parliament
and sometime Governor of Ceylon: An Autobiography (London:
John Murray 1894), vii, 407pp., ill. [photo port. of Sir William];
- Ed., Mr Gregorys Letter-Box 1813-30 [cover 1835]
(London: Smith Elder & Co. 1898) [acq. by John Murray];
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Journals |
- Lennox Robinson, ed., Lady Gregorys Journals 1916-30
(London: Putnam 1946; NY: Macmillan 1947), 344pp. [Index, 341ff.
- Daniel J. Murphy, ed., Lady Gregorys Journals Vol.
I [Journal Books 1-29] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe; NY: OUP
1978);
- Daniel J. Murphy, ed., Lady Gregorys Journals,
Vol. II [Journal Books 30-44] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe; NY:
OUP 1987);
- James Pethica, ed., Lady Gregorys Diaries 1892-1902
[with additional sporadic entries 1903-1909 ](Gerrards Cross Colin
Smythe 1995), 346pp., ills. [4pp. pls.]
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Sundry articles |
- Ireland, Real and Ideal, in Nineteenth Century,
44 (Nov. 1898), cp.70-75;
- The Felons on Our Land, in Cornhill Magazine,
47 (1900), pp.633-34.
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Selections & anthologies |
- Selected Plays of Lady Gregory, chosen & introduced
by Elizabeth Coxhead; foreword by Sean OCasey [1962] (Gerrards
Cross: Colin Smythe 1975).
- Selected Plays of Lady Gregory, chosen and with an introduction
by Mary FitzGerald; with a foreword by Sean OCasey (Gerrards
Cross: Colin Smythe 1983), 377pp. [selected checklist compiled
by Colin Smythe; Bibliography, pp.373-77].
- Lucy McDiarmid & Maureen Waters, Lady Gregory: Selected
Writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1995), 573pp.; [incl. text
of Kathleen Ni Houlihan, jointly attrib. to Yeats and Lady
Gregory, and Grania, her proto-feminist play.
- Melosina Lenox-Conyngham, ed., Diaries of Ireland from Ludolf
von Münchausen to Lady Gregory (Dublin: Lilliput Press
1998), 256pp. [excerpts].
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[ top ] |
Collected editions |
Colin Smythe & T. R.
Henn, gen. eds., The Coole Edition of Lady Gregorys Writings
(1970-82): |
- Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland, with a foreword
by Elizabeth Coxhead [Coole Edition 1] (Gerrards Cross: Colin
Smythe 1970), 365pp. [Foreword pp.5-8; frontispiece half-plate
b&w reps. of Thoor Ballylee and Coole Lake
by Robert Gregory].
- Our Irish Theatre: A Chapter of Autobiograpy, with a
foreword by Roger McHugh [Coole Edition 4 (Gerrards Cross: Colin
Smythe 1972), 279, [19]pp.; [orig. 1913]
- The Collected Plays, with a foreword by Ann Saddlemeyer
[Coole Edition 5-8] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1970): Comedies
[Vol. I, 304pp.,]; Tragedies and Tragic Comedies [Vol.
II, 362pp.]; Wonder and Supernatural [Vol. III, 434pp.];
Translations, Adaptions and Collaborations [Vol. IV, 376pp.]
& Do., in 2 vols. (NY: OUP 1970) [Gerrards Cross pb.
edn. 1979].
- The Kiltartan Books Comprising The Kiltartan Poetry History
and Wonder Books by Lady Gregory, ill. by Robert and Margaret
Gregory, with a foreword by Padraic Colum [Coole Edition 9] (Gerrards
Cross 1971), 213pp. [Foreword, pp.5-8; frontispiece being Epsteins
head of Lady Gregory, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin];
- Poets and Dreamers: Studies and Translations from the Irish
by Lady Gregory Including Nine Plays of Douglas Hyde, with
a foreword by T. R. Henn [Coole Edition 10] (Gerrards Cross 1974),
286pp. [Frontispiece photo. of Lady Gregory taken by Chancellor
of Dublin, rep. in a NY newspaper at time of first Abbey tour
of USA.]
- The Journals: Volume One - Books One to Twenty-six (10 October
1916-24 Feb. 1925), edited by Daniel J. Murphy [Coole Edition
11] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1978), 707pp. [Notes, p.630ff.;
Index, p.677ff.]
- The Journals, Volume Two [Books Thirty to Forty-four]
[Coole Edition 12] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe; NY: OUP 1987);
- Seventy Years: Being the Autobiography of Lady Gregory
[Coole Edition 13] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1974), xvi, 583pp.,
ill. [16pp. of pls.; ports].
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[Hors de sèrie]: A Book of Saints and Wonders put down
here by Lady Gregory according to the old writings and the memory
of the people of Ireland; with illustrations by Margaret Gregory
and a foreword by Edward Malins [3rd edn.] (Gerrards Cross: Colin
Smythe 1971), 116pp., ill. 2 leaves of pls., ports].
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[ top ] |
Selected Editions |
- Elizabeth Coxhead, ed., Lady Gregory: Selected Plays,
foreword by Sean OCasey (London & NY: Putnam; [NY:]
Hill & Wang 1962), and Do. [facs. edn.] (Gerrards Cross:
Colin Smythe 1975), 270pp. [contains 9 plays with extracts from
three prose works];
- Mary Fitzgerald, sel. & intro., Selected Plays of Lady
Gregory with foreword Sean OCasey (Gerrards Cross: Colin
Smythe; Washington: Catholic UP 1983), 378pp. [contains Travelling
Man; Gaol Gate [1906]; Spreading the News
[1904]; Kincora; Hyacinth Halvey; Doctor
in Spite of Himself; Rising of the Moon [1907];
Dervorgilla; The Workhouse Ward; Grania;
The Golden Apple; Story Brought by Brigit;
Dave Fitzgerald], and Do. [enl. edn.] (Gerrards
Cross 1993) [with add. bibliography];
- Lucy McDiarmid and Maureen Waters, eds., Selected Writings
of Lady Gregory (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1995) [unambiguously
assigning Kathleen ni Houlihan to Lady Gregory]; James
Pethica, ed., Lady Gregorys Diaries 1892-1902 (Gerrards
Cross: Colin Smythe 1996), 38pp., 346pp., with 16pp. ills.
|
Reprint editions |
- Lady Gregory, Irish Myths and Legends
[orig. as Gods and Fighting Men, 1904] (Philadelphia: Running
Press; London: Creative Umbrella 1998), 446pp.; Do. [another
imp.?] (Philadelphia: Courage Press 1998), 446pp.; Do., with an
introduction by Colum Tóibín (Folio Society Edn.
2011), 380pp., ill. [12 col. ills. by Jillian Tamaki; sewn slip-case
quarter-bound in brown leather].
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[ top ] |
Correspondence |
- Ann Saddlemyer, sel. & ed., Some Letters of John M. Synge
to Lady Gregory and W. B. Yeats (Dublin: Cuala Press 1971),
vii, 85pp. [ltd. edn. of 500].
Ann Saddlemyer, sel. & ed., Theatre Business; The Correspondence
of the First Abbey Directors (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe
1982), 330pp.
- Dan H. Laurence & Nicholas Grene, eds., Shaw, Lady Gregory
and the Abbey: A Correspondence and a Record (Gerrards Cross:
Colin Smythe 1993), xliii, 211pp., ill.
|
[ top ] |
See also Letters of W. B. Yeats (ed. John Kelly, et al.)
|
Internet resources |
Mythology |
The Fate of
the Children of Lir and Oisin and Patrick
(trans. Lady Gregory), at Irish Resources, ed. Michael
Sundermeier, Creighton University [link].
|
Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story
of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster Arranged and Put Into English
by Lady Gregory, with a preface by W. B. Yeats (London: John
Murray 1911) - available online at Internet Archive - online;
accessed 07.06.2019.
|
Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of
the Tuath de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland, arranged and
put into English by Lady Gregory, with a preface by W. B.
Yeats (1905) - ded. to the members of the Irish Literary Society
of New York - available at Gutenberg Gallery - online;
accessed 10.06.2019.
|
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Plays available at English Literature.net. |
The Gaol Gate - online
The Travelling Man - online
The Workhouse Ward - online
|
The Jackdaw - online
The Rising of the Moon - online
Hyacinth Halvey - online |
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[Full text with no dates give.] |
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Bibiliographical details
Poets and Dreamers: Studies & Translations from the Irish, by Lady Gregory (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis & Co.; NY Charles Scribners Sons 1903) - Contents: Raftery [1]; West Irish Ballads [47]; Jacobite Ballads [66]; An Craoibhins [i.e.,
Douglas Hydes] Poems [76]; Boer Ballads in Ireland [89]; A Sorrowful Lament for Ireland [98]; Mountain Theology [104]; Herb-Healing [111]; The Wandering Tribe [121]; Workhouse Dreams [128]; On the Edge of the World [193]; An Craoibhins [i.e.,
Hydes] Plays:— [196]; The Twisting of the Rope [200]; The Marriage [216]; The Lost Saint [236]; The Nativity [244] - available at Gutenberg Project - online; accessed 09.09.2021. See also Poets and Dreamers [rep.
edn., with foreword by T. R. Henn; Coole Edn., Vol. 11] (Gerrards Cross:
Colin Smythe 1974), 287pp.
Seven Short Plays
(Dublin: Maunsel 1909), 211, [5]pp. Contents: Spreading the News
[1] Hyacinth Halvey [31]; The Rising of the Moon
[79]; The Jackdaw [97]; The Travelling Man [163];
The Gaol Gate [181]; Music for Songs in the plays [195];
Notes [204]; ded. to W. B. Yeats, good praiser, wholesome dispraiser,
heavy-handed judge, open-handed helper of us all [because] you like
them and because you have taught me my trade, 10 May 1909. (See
internet copy at Gutenberg Project - online;
accessed 23.10.2020.)
Ideals in Ireland,
ed. Lady Gregory (London: At the Unicorn 1901), 107pp.
- comprising AE [George Russell], Nationality and Imperialism;
D. P. Moran, The Battle of Two Civilizations; Douglas Hyde,
The Return of the Fenians; George Moore, Literature
and Irish Language; Hyde, What is Ireland Asking For;
Standish OGrady, The Great Enchantment; W. B. Yeats,
The Literary Movement in Ireland (A Postscript). Essay taken
from New Ireland Review, All Ireland Review, North
American Review, An Claidheamh Soluis, and The Leader.
[See rep. edn. NY: Lemma Publishing Corporation, 1973, 107pp.]
Cuchulain
of Muirthemne: The History of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster,
arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory, with a Preface by W.
B. Yeats [1902]; rep. [with Gods and Fighting Men ] as The
Complete Irish Mythology (London: The Slaney Press [Reed Consumer
Books] 1995), 550pp. CONTENTS: Birth of Cuchulain [339]; Boy Deeds of
Cuchulain [342]; The Courting of Emer [350]; Bricrius Feast, and
the War of Words of the Women of Ulster [366]; The Championship of Ulster
[374]; The High King of Ireland [385]; Fate of the Children of Usnach
[398]; The Dream of Angus [420]; Cruachan [423]; The Wedding of Maine
Morgor [429]; The War for the Bull of Cuailgne [439]; The Awakening
of Ulster [479]; The Two Bulls [493]. Epigraph: Bheirim an
mhóid do bheir mo mhuinntir, ar Cúchulain, go
mbéidh tracht agus iomrádh fós ar mo gníomharthaibh-se
ameasg na n-árd-gníomh do rinne na gairgidhigh is tréine.
I swear by the oath of my people, said Cuchulain, I
will make my doings be spoken of among the great doings of heroes in
their strength. Dedication of the Irish Edition to the People
of Kiltartan: ‘My Dear Friends, / When I began to gather these stories
together, it is of you I was thinking, that you would like, to have
them and to be reading them. For although you have not to go far to
get stories of Finn and Goll and Oisin from any old person in the place,
there is very little of the history of Cuchulain and his friends left
in the memory of the people, but only that they were brave men and good
fighters, and that Deirdre was beautiful. / When I went looking for
the stories in the old writings, I found that the Irish in them is too
hard for any person to read that has not made a long study of it. Some
scholars have worked well at them, Irishmen and Germans and Frenchmen,
but they have printed them in the old cramped Irish, with translations
into German and French or English, and these are not easy for you to
get, or to understand, and the stories themselves are confused, every
one giving a different account from the others in some small thing,
the way there is not much pleasure in reading them. It is what 1 have
tried to do, to take the best of the stories, or whatever part of each
will fit best to one another, and in that way give a fair account of
Chuchulains life and death. I left out a good deal I thought you
would not care about for one reason or another, but I put in nothing
of my own that could he helped, only a sentence or two now and again
to link the different parts together. I have told the whole story in
plain and simple words, in the same way my old nurse Mary Sheridan [330]
used to be telling stories from the Irish long ago, and I a child at
Roxborough. / And indeed if there was more respect for Irish things
among the learned men that live in the college at Dublin, where so many
of these old writings are stored, this work would not have been left
to a woman of the house, that has to be minding the place, and listening
to complaints, and dividing the share of food. / My friend and your
friend the Craoibhin Aoibhin [Douglas Hyde] has put Irish of today on
some of these stories that I have set in order, for I am sure you will
like to have the history of the heroes of Ireland told in the language
of Ireland. And I am very glad to have something that is worth offering
you, for you have been very kind to me ever since I came over to you
from Kilchrist, two and twenty years ago. / Augusta Gregory - March
1902. (For Preface, see under W. B. Yeats, in Library,
Irish Classics, infra;
for remarks from Notes, see under Quotations [infra]; quotations
from see also under Robert Atkinson for remarks in authors afterword
[infra].
Gods and Fighting Men:
The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland,
arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory, with a Preface by W.
B. Yeats [1904]; rep. [with Cuchulain of Muirthemne ] as The
Complete Irish Mythology (London: The Slaney Press] [Reed Consumer
Books] 1995), 550pp., [2] 1-332. Dedication to the members of
the Irish literary society of New York: My Friends, those I know
and those I do not know, 1 am glad in the year of the birth of your
Society to have this book to offer you. / It has given great courage
to many workers here - working to build up broken walls - to know you
have such friendly thoughts of them in your minds. A few of you have
already come to see us, and we begin to hope that one day the steamers
across the Atlantic will not go out full, but come back full, until
some of you find your real home is here, and say as some of us say,
like Finn to the woman of enchantments - / Ní fhagfamaois
á dtír féin dá bhfagmaois an domhan mór
mar dhuithche agus Tír-na-na-nÓg leis / We would not
give up our own country - Ireland - if we were to get the whole world
as an estate, and the Country of the Young along with it. Augusta
Gregory. CONTENTS: PART [1 - The Gods: Book I - The Coming
of the Tuatha de Danaan . I. The Fight with the Firbolgs [17]; II.
The Reign of Bres [21]; Book II - Lugh of the Long Hand . I.
The Coming of Lugh [26]; II. The Sons of Tuireann [31]; III. The Great
Battle of Magh Tuireadh [47]; IV. The Hidden House of Lugh [54]; Book
III - The Coming of the Gael . I. The Landing [56]; II. The Battle
of Tailltin [59]; Book IV - The Ever-Living Living Ones . I Bodb
Dearg [61]; II. The Dagda [64]; III. Angus Og [66]; IV. The Morrigu
[68]; V. Aine [69]; V1. Aoibhell [70]; VII. Midhir and Etain [71]; VIII.
Manannan [78]; IX. Manannan at play [80]; X. His Call to Bran [84];
XI. His Three Calls to Cormac [87]; XII. Cliodnas Wave [91]; XIII.
His Call to Connla [92]; XIV. Tadg in Manannans Islands [94];
XV Laegaire in the Happy Plain [99]; Book V - The Fate of The Children
of Lir [103]; PART II - THE FIANNA. Book I - Finn, Son of Cumbal
. I. The Coming of Finn [117]; II. Finns Household [123]; III.
Birth of Bran [125]; IV. Oisins Mother [126]; V. The Rest Men
of the Fianna [129]; Book II - Finns Helpers . I. The Lad
of the Skins [135]; II. Black, Brown, and Grey [138]; III. The Hound
[140]; IV. Red Ridge [145]; Book III - The Battle of the White Strand
. I. The Enemies of Ireland [146]; II. Cael and Credhe [147]; III. Conn
Crither [149]; IV. Glas, Son of Dremen [150]; V. The Help of the Men
of Dea [151]; VI. The March of the Fianna [153]; VII. The First Fighters
[154]; VIII. The King of Ulsters Son [157]; IX. The High Kings
Son [159]; X. The King of Lochlann and his Sons [161]; XI. Labrans
journey [163]; XII The Great Fight [165]; XIII Credhes Lament
[170]. Book IV - Huntings and Enchantments . I. The King of Britains
Son [172]; II. The Cave of Ceiscoran [174]; III. Donn, Son of Midhir
[175]; IV. The Hospitality of Cuannas House [181]; V. Cat-Heads
and Dog-Heads [183]; VI. Lomnas Head [185]; VII. Ilbrec of Ess
Ruadh [186]; VIII. The Cave of Cruachan [192]; IX. The Wedding at Ceann
Slieve [194]; X. The Shadowy One [199]; XI Finns Madness [100];
XII The Red Woman [101]; XIII. Finn and the Phantoms [204]; XIV. The
Pigs of Angus [206]; XV The Hunt of Slieve Cuilinn [208]. Book V - Oisins
Children [211]. Book VI - Diarmuid . I Birth of Diarmuid
[215]; II. How Diarmuid got his Love-Spot [216]; III. The Daughter of
King Under-Wave [218]; IV. The Hard Servant [223]; V. The House of the
Quicken Trees [130]. Book VII - Diarmuid and Grania . I. The
Flight from Teamhair [232]; II. The Pursuit [236]; III. The Green Champions
[140]; IV. The Wood of Dubhros [246]; V. The Quarrel [254]; VI. The
Wanderers [256]; VII. Fighting and Peace [258]; VIII. The Boar of Beinn
Gulbain [260]. Book VIII - Cnoc-an-Air . I. Tailc, Son of Treon
[268]; II. Meargachs Wife [270]; III. Ailnes Revenge [274].
Book IX - The Wearing Away of the Fianna . I. The Quarrel with
the Sons of Morna [279]; II. Death of Goll [283]; III. The Battle of
Gabhra [284]; Book X - The End of the Fianna . I. Death of Bran
[288]; II. The Call of Oisin [288]; III. The Last of the Great Men [290].
Book XI - Oisin and Patrick. I. Oisins Story [293]; II.
Oisin in Patricks House [296]; III. The Arguments [298]; IV. Oisins
Laments [305]. Notes, viz., I. An Apology [309]; II. The Age and Origin
of the Stories of the Fianna [310]; III. The Authorities [Part One:
Books One, Two, and Tree; Book Four; Part Two: The Fianna]; IV: Pronunciation
[318-24; End]. (For Preface by Yeats - see in RICORSO Library
> Authors > Irish Classics > W. B. Yeats [infra].)
[ top ]
Criticism
W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregorys Translations,
in The Cutting of the Agate (NY: Macmillan 1912; London:
Macmillan 1919) [q.pp.].
Andrew E. Malone [on Lady Gregory], in Dublin Magazine
(Jan-March 1933) [q.pp.].
Vere R. T. Gregory, The House of Gregory: The Gregory Family
in Ireland, foreword by T. U. Sadleir [Ulster King of Arms]
(Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1943), 210pp., ills.
Hazard Adams, Lady Gregory (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1973)
[q.pp.].
Elizabeth Coxhead, Lady Gregory: A Literary Portrait (NY:
Harcourt, Brace & World 1961); Do., [rev. edn.] (London:
Secker & Warburg 1966), ill..
Mary Lou Kohfeldt, Lady Gregory: The Woman Behind the Irish
Renaissance (London: André Deutsch; NY: Atheneum 1985).
Ann Saddlemyer, Augusta Gregory, Irish Nationalist,
in Joseph Ronsley, ed., Myth and Reality in Irish Literature
(Ontario 1977).
Ann Saddlemyer, In Defence of Lady Gregory, Playwright
(Dublin: Dolmen Press 1966) [q.pp.] .
Kohfeldt, Lady Gregory, The [Fine] Woman Behind
the Irish Renaissance (London 1984 NY: Atheneum 1985).
Ann Saddlemyer and Colin Smythe, eds., Lady Gregory: Fifty
Years After (Gerrards Cross 1987) [include. Gabriel Fallon,
Fragments of Memory, pp.30-34 ; Elizabeth Longford,
Lady Gregory and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, pp.85-97; John
Kelly, Friendship is All the House I Have: Lady
Gregory and W. B. Yeats, pp.179ff.; Mary Fitzgerald, Four
French Comedies: Lady Gregorys Translations of Molière,
pp.277-90 ; Smythe, Lady Gregorys Contribution to Periodicals:
A Checklist, et al.].
George F. Butler, The Heros Metamorphosis in Lady
Gregorys Cuchulain of Muirthemne: Scholarship and Popularisation,
in Éire-Ireland, 22, 4 (Winter 1987), pp.36-46.
A. N. Jeffares, W. B. Yeats: A New Biography (1988).
E. H. Mikhail, Lady Gregory, An Annotated Bibliography of
Criticism (NY: Whitston 1982).
Mikhail, Lady Gregory: Interviews and Recollections (NJ:
Rowman & Littlefield 1977).
Saddlemyer, In Defence of Lady Gregory, Playwright (Chester
Springs PA: Chester Springs: Dufour Edns. 1966).
James F. Knapp, History against Myth, Lady Gregory and
Cultural Discourse, in Éire-Ireland, 22, 3 (Fall
1987), pp.30-42.
Mary Helen Thuente, Lady Gregory and the Book of the People,
in Éire-Ireland 15, 1 (Spring 1980), pp.89-99.
James Pethica, Our Kathleen: Yeatss Collaboration
with Lady Gregory in the Writing of Cathleen ni Houlihan,
in Warwick Gould., ed., Yeats Annual, 6 (London: Macmillan
1988), pp.3-31.
John Quinn, Lady Gregory and the Abbey Theatre, in
The Abbey Theatre: Interviews and Recollections (London:
Macmillan 1988), pp.104-07.
Edward A. Kopper, Lady Gregory: A Review of Criticism
[Mod. Irish Literature Monograph Series] (1991).
James F. Knapp, Irish Primitivism and Imperial Discourse:
Lady Gregorys Peasantry, in Macropolitics of Nineteenth
Century Literature: Nationalism, Exoticism, Imperialism (Pennsylvania
UP 1991), pp.286-301.
Romine Scott, Lady Gregory and the Language of Transgression,
in Arkansas Quarterly, 2 (1993), pp.109-23.
Lucy McDiarmid, Augusta Gregory, Bernard Shaw, and the
Shewing-Up of Dublin Castle, in PMLA, 109 (1994), pp.26-44.
Declan Kiberd, Lady Gregory and the Empire Boys,
in Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation
(London: Jonathan Cape 1995), pp.83-95.
Mary Lowe-Evans, Hyacinth and the Wise Man: Lady Gregorys
Comic Enterprise, in Theresa OConnor, The Comic Tradition
in Irish Women Writers (Florida UP 1996), pp.40-55.
Tramble T. Turner, Lady Isabelle Augusta Persse Gregory
in Bernice Schrank & William Demastes, ed., Irish
Playwrights, 1880-1995: A Research and Production Sourcebook
(CT: Greenwood Press 1997), pp.108-23.
Selina Guinness, Visions and Beliefs in the West of
Ireland: Irish Folklore and British Anthropology, in Irish
Studies Review (April 1998), pp.37-46.
Patrica Lysaght, Perspectives on Narrative Commonication
and Gender: Lady Augusta Gregorys Visions and Beliefs in
the West of Ireland (1920), in Fabula, 39 (1998),
256-76pp.
Anne Fogarty, A Woman of the House: Gender and Nationalism
in the Writings of Augusta Gregory, in Border Crossings:
Irish Women Writers and National Identities, ed. Kathryn Kirkpatrick
(Dublin: Wolfhound Press; Alabama UP 2000), [Chap. 5].
Seán & Lois Tobin, eds., Lady Gregory Autumn Gatherings:
Reflections at Coole (Galway [2001]), 218pp. [contribs. incl.
Katie Donovan, John Quinn, Lorna Reynolds, Bruce Arnold, Declan
Kiberd and Catriona Clutterbuck].
Colm Tóibín, Lady Gregorys Toothbrush
(Lilliput Press 2002), 127pp.
Declan Kiberd, Augusta Gregorys Cuchulain: The Rebirth
of the Hero, in Irish Classics (London: Granta 2000),
pp.399-419.
James Pethica, Lady Gregorys Abbey Theatre Drama:
Ireland Real and Ideal, in The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-century
Irish Drama, ed. Shaun Richards (Cambridge UP 2003) [Chap. 5.]
Irish University Review [Lady Gregory Special
Issue], 34, 1 (Spring/Summer 2004) [infra].
Judith Hill, Lady Gregory: An Irish Life (Sutton Publ.
2005), 432pp,, ill. [+8pp. photos].
Paul Murphy, Woman as Fantasy Object in Lady Gregorys
Historical Tragedies, in Women in Irish Drama: A Century
of Authorship and Representation, ed. Melissa Sihra (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan 2007) [q.pp.].
George Cusack, The Politics of Identity in Irish Drama: W.B.
Yeats, Augusta Gregory and J. M. Synge (London: Routledge 2009),
210pp.
Judith Hill, Lady Gregory, in W. B. Yeats in Context,
ed. David Holdeman & Ben Levitas (Cambridge UP 2010)
[Chap. 12]
Cathy Leeney, Augusta Gregory: Shaping the Image and the
Breaking of Love, in Irish Women Playwrights - 1900-1939
(Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 2010), pp.19-58;
Judith Hill, Lady Gregory: An Irish life (Cork: Collins
Press 2011), 600pp. |
|
See also Maria DiBattista & Lucy McDiarmid, eds., High
and Low Moderns: Literature and Culture, 1889-1939 (NY:
OUP 1996); R. F. Foster, W. B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. I: The
Apprentice Mage (OUP 1997), Vol. II: The Arch-Poet
(OUP 2003); Christopher Murray, Twentieth-Century Irish Drama:
A Mirror Up to Nation (Manchester UP 1997); Ben Levitas,
The Theatre of Nation: Irish Drama and Cultural Nationalism
1890-1916 (Clarendon Press 2002); Lionel Pilkington, Theatre
and State in 20th Century Ireland (London: Routledge 2001).
|
Bibliographical details
Irish University Review [Lady
Gregory Special Issue], 34, 1 (Spring/Summer 2004), 212. CONTENTS:
Contributors [v]; Anne Fogarty [ed.,] Introduction [viii]; James Pethica,
‘“A Young Mans Ghost: Lady Gregory and J. M. Synge
[1]; Judith Hill, ‘Finding A Voice: Augusta Gregory, Raftery, and Cultural
Nationalism, 1899-1900 [21]; Carla De Petris, ‘Lady Gregory and
Italy: A Lasting and Profitable Relationship [37]; Sinéad
Garrigan Mattar, ‘“Wage For Each People Her Hand Has Destroyed:
Lady Gregorys Colonial Nationalism [49]; Lucy McDiarmid
, ‘Lady Gregory, Wilfrid Blunt, and London Table Talk [67]; Paige
Reynolds , ‘The Making of a Celebrity: Lady Gregory and the Abbeys
First American Tour [81]; Michael McAteer , ‘“Kindness in Your
Unkindness: Lady Gregory and History [94]; R. F. Foster,
‘Yeats and the Death of Lady Gregory [109]; Richard Allen Cave,
‘Revaluations: Representations of Women in the Tragedies of Gregory
and Yeats [122]; Dawn Duncan, ‘Lady Gregory and the Feminine
Journey: The Gaol, Grania and The Story Brought by
Brigit [133]; Eric Weitz, ‘Lady Gregorys “Humour of
Character: A Commedia Approach to Spreading the News
[144]; Cathy Leeney, ‘The New Woman in a New Ireland?: Grania
after Naturalism [157]; Anthony Roche, ‘Re-Working The Workhouse
Ward: McDonagh, Beckett, and Gregory [171]; List of Books
Reviewed [185]; Books Reviewed by Jarlath Killeen, Shaun Richards, Corinna
Salvadori Lonergan, Alex Davis, Jefferson Holdridge, Douglas Archibald
[186]. List of Books Received [209].
[ top ]
References
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel
1919) & includes brief biographical notices and summaries of prose
works.
Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction [Pt
II] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), alludes to an obituary article on Lady
Gregory by Andrew E. Malone in Dublin Magazine (Jan.-March 1933)
in which the author writes, … Her family were of English
extraction and its outlook and its sympathies were as British as its political
view was Unionist. From her earliest childhood she had been devoted to
the peasantry, in her native Galway and the folklore of her native county
fascinated her. She learned Irish the more readily to assimilate it …
She originated a curious literary folk dialect which came to be known
as Kiltartan. It is doubtful, however, if she ever got anything more than
the peasant speech; the mind eluded her. She viewed the peasant from without,
from above, and as her outlook was essentially comic, she saw them as
figures of fun.
D. E. S. Maxwell, Modern Irish Drama (Cambridge
UP 1984), lists Collected Plays, 4 vols, in The Coole Edition
of Lady Gregorys Writings, gen. eds., Colin Smythe and T. R.
Henn (1970), Comedies [Vol. 1]; Tragedies and Tragic Comedies [Vol. 2];
Wonder and Supernatural [Vol. 3]; Translations, Adaptions and Collaborations
[Vol. 4], all edited and introduced [Foreword] by Ann Saddlemyer; Also,
Spreading the News (Maunsel 1909); The Rising of the Moon
(Lon. 1907); other works, Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902); Gods
and Fighting Men (1904); Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland,
with 2 essays and notes by W. B. Yeats, 2 vols. (1920); Our Irish Theatre
(1913); and Lennox Robinson, ed., Lady Gregorys Journals
(1946).
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology
of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, selects Cuchulain
of Muirthemne [534-40]; Spreading the News [616-24]; The
Workhouse Ward [624-29]; REFS & REMS, Shaw, the modern Irish
theatre began with Kathleen ni Houlihan of Mr Yeats and Lady Gregorys
Rising of the Moon, in which the old patriotism stirred and wrung
its victims; but the theatre thus established called on Young Ireland
to write Irish plays and … the immediate result was a string of
plays of Irish life … in which the heroines proclaimed that they
were sick of Ireland &c (Composite Autobiography), 498;
[517, 518, 519, 521, cultural nationalism, ed. essay, Terence
Brown], images to supplant stage-Irishman of popular theatre [ed., D.
E. S. Maxwell], 562; an indispensable mediator, 563; [do., 567], Synge
meets Lady Gregory, 717; with Yeats, rejected The Silver Tassie,
720; when Hyde found some Raftery poem in the RIA Lady Gregory found 22
more in another MS, 723; see also pp.770n. 772, 779, 798, 810n, 817n,
825, 818n, 830, 845, 898, 931, 1025, 1026n; and 560, BIOG. Notes on Robert
Gregory, 783, 801-03, 817n; and further notes on Lady Gregory at FDA3
86 [helped Joyce], 171 [disapproved of Lennox Robinsons founding
Dublin Drama League], 231, 245n, 484, 548, 571, 655, 1312-13l 1323n.
Helena Sheehan, Irish Television Drama
(RTE 1987), RTÉ film, An Fear Suil, writtten by Lady Gregory
and directed by Brian MacLochlainn (1966); also The Workhouse Ward,
Lady Gregory/Jim Fitzgerald (1963).
[ top ]
Publishers & Auctioneers
Colin Smythe, Ltd. [publisher to the Lady Gregory Estate],
lists Gods and Fighting Men [0-901072-37-0] Paperback £6.95; The
Journals, volume 1, Books 1-29 (ed. Daniel J.Murphy) [0-900675-91-8] £40.00;
; The Journals, volume 2, Books 30-44 (ed., Daniel J.Murphy) [0-900675-92-6]
£40.00; ; The Kiltartan Books [0-900675-33-0] £20.00; ; Mr
Gregorys Letter-Box, 1813-35 (ed.) [0-900675-41-1] £25.00;
; Poets and Dreamers [0-900675-35-7] £28.00; ; Selected Plays Chosen
& Introduced by Mary Fitzgerald [0-86140-099-2] £22.00; ; 0-86140-100-X
Paperback £6.95 Collected plays 2: Tragedies and Tragic-Comedies
0-900675-30-6 £22.50 0-86140-017-8 Paperback £6.95 Collected
Plays 3: The Wonder and the Supernatural Plays 0-900675-31-4 £25.00;
Collected Plays 4: Translations, Adaptations & Collaborations 0-900675-32-2
£22.50 0-86140-019-4 Paperback £6.95 Visions & Beliefs in
the West of Ireland 0-900675-25-X £22.50 0-901072-36-2 Paperback
£6.95 Douglas Hyde, Selected Plays (With translations by Lady Gregory)
0-86140-095-X £22.50 -096-8 £5.95 Shaw, Lady Gregory, & the
Abbey (Editors Dan H.Laurence and Nicholas Grene) 0-86140-278-2 £25.00;
Lady Gregory, Fifty Years After (Editors Ann Saddlemyer and Colin Smythe)
0-86140-112-3 £35.00; A Guide to Coole Park, Home of Lady Gregory
Colin Smythe 3rd edition 0-86140-382-7 Paperback £4.95 Me & Nu:
Childhood at Coole Anne Gregory 0-86140-010-0 Paperback £4.50. [Available
at Colin Smythe Ltd., PO Box 4, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, PO BOX 6
Gerrards Cross, Bucks ENGLAND SL9 8XA tel 01753 886000 fax 01753 886469;
email & webpage.]
Sothebys [Auction
Catalogue]: Printed Books formerly in the Library at Coole, The Property
of Lady Gregory (London: Sotheby & Co.), Auction Catalogue,
20-21 March 1972 [510 lots]; prefaced by extract from Lady Gregorys
Coole (Dolmen 1971), by permission of The Lady Gregory Estate
and Colin Smythe, Ltd: After my marriage my husband told me that
very soon after he had first met me, and when I knew him but slightly,
he had in making his will left to me the choice of any six books in
his Library at Coole. After marriage he directed, in his later testament,
that not six, but all, should be mine through my lifetime. But is, as
seems likely, I am now, through changes, to be divorced from these companionable
shelves, I sometimes ponder which among the volumes should I choose
from their long accustomed places to go with me for the scanty years
or days of eyesight and understanding that remain. Goes on to
cite titles such as Turnford (Voyages), Frazer (on Persia), Twiss
(on Portugal and Spain) and Orme (on Hindustan), also naming Robert
Gregory, the friend of Burke and Fox and builder of the Library - which
incl. Institutes of Hindu Law and oriental translations by Charles Wilkinson
[&c.], Singalese works collected by her husband, and those of Richard
Gregory, the one of my forerunners I feel most drawn to,
whose romantic elopement [and] fabled riches make still the kernel
of folk stories in Kiltartan; further cites shelves filled by
her husband with editions of the classics, a more spacious shelf
below [that] holds larger volumes [such as] a volume of Tragedies of
Eschylus [1777], printed at Norwich in such clean letters
as our wandering Irish poet Raftery admired; the Royal arms on the cover;
its bookplate Carlton House Libary [… &c.]
She ends: I shall be sorry to leave all these volumes among which
I have lived. They have felt the pressure of my fingers. They have been
my friends. See specimen contents under Sir William Gregory, References,
noting that some of the volumes bear her book plate and other matter
tipped in relating to her, infra.)
Booksellers
Hyland Books (Catalogue 214) list The Image, A Play in Three Acts
(1st ed. 1910); Hyacinth Halvey (1st sep. edn. 1910); The Kiltartan Moliere
[The Miser, The Doctor in Spite of Himself; The Rogueries of Scapin] (1910);
New Comedies (1st ed. 1913). Hyland Cat. 220 (1995) lists Seven Short
Plays (NY Edn. n.d.) [signed copy from L. A. G. Strong to John Lehmann].
[ top ]
Libraries
Library of Herbert Bell (Belfast) holds Lady Gregory, ed., Sir William
Gregory, KCMG, An Autobiography (London 1894) [Signed To J.B. Yeats
from A Gregory Coole 1899]; Cuchulain of Muirthemne (London 1902); Lennox
Robinson, ed., Lady Gregorys Journals 1916-1930 (London n.d.); The
Kiltartan Molière (Dublin 1910); Seven Short Plays (Dublin 1911);
New Comedies (New York 1913); The Golden Apple, A Play for Children (London
1916); The Image & Other Plays (London 1923); the Story Brought By
Brigit (London 1924); Elizabeth Coxhead, ed., Lady Gregory, Selected Plays
(London 1962); Coxhead, Lady Gregory, A Literary Portrait (London 1966).
Also reprint edns., The Coole Edition of her Works in 12 vols.; Visions
and Beliefs in the West of Ireland (1970), Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1970),
Gods and Fighting Men (1970), Our Irish Theatre (1972), The Comedies (1970),
The Tragedies (1970), Wonders and Supernatural (1970), The Translations
and Adaptations (1970), The Kiltartan Books (1971), Hugh Lane (1973),
Poets and Dreamers (1974), The Book of Saints and Wonders (1971), Seventy
Years 1852-1922 (1974); The Kiltartan Molière (Dublin 1910); also
Vere R. T. Gregory, The House of Gregory (Dublin 1943).
[ top ]
Notes
(Literary) Ideals: In 1901 Lady Gregory edited Ideals
in Ireland, with contributions from Russell, Yeats, Hyde, et al.,
where John Eglinton has previously issued under the title Literary
Ideals in Ireland (1899), a collection of essays by Yeats, Eglinton,
George [AE] Russell and Larminie originally published as a
controversy in the Daily Express - in which collection the essay
by AE, in the last position, bears the same name as the title of the whole.
[See details under John Eglinton, supra.]
Under Twenty-Five (Gaiety Theatre 14
March 1903): an early version was published in New York under the title
A Losing Game because the editor of The Gael thought that
the card-game 25 at which the returning emigrant deliberately
loses his money to the husband of his beloved would be unknown to Americans.
McDonoughs Wife, a play by Lady
Gregory, was first published in New Irish Comedies (NY &
London 1913).
Spreading the News commonly copied as
The Spreading of the News [err.], as in framed photography of
the premier cast, in Glynns Hotel, Gort, Co. Galway; the cast
represented incl. P. Mac Shuibhlaig; W. G. Fay; Sara Allgood; Máire
Ní Gharbhaigh; Arthur Sinclair (poss. from Irish Nat. Theatre
tour to Loughrea, organised by Gerald ODonovan, 1901).
1916 Commemoration: The Abbey theatre commemorated
the 1916 Rising in 1949 with three one-act plays including Lady Gregorys
Dervorgilla (Bríd Ní Loinsigh, Michael Hennessy,
May Craig, and Philip Flynn) and The Rising of the Moon (Walter
Macken and Harry Brogan, resp. as the Sargeant and the Ballad Singer);
also Lost Light by Roibeard Ó Faracháin. (See The
Irish Times, Tues. April 19, 1949; rep. in The Irish Times,
12 Sept. 2009 [suppl].)
W. B. Yeats: According to Robert Greacen, in
a review of Judith Hill, Lady Gregory first met Yates on
the same occasion as Coventry Patmore in the home of Lord Morris, and
found him every inch a poet sporting a black cloak, a black
sombrero, and black tie, before meeting him again two years later with
Paul Bourget, Arthur Symons and others - a meeting that marked the beginning
of a long friendship. (Books Ireland, Dec. 2005).
Hugh Lane: Lady Gregory joined with [i.e., rallied]
George Russell, Douglas Hyde, Somerville & Ross, Emily Lawless,
George Russell, and W. B. Yeats in An Appeal from Irish Authors
(Freemans Journal, 13 Dec. 1904), protesting against Corporation
judgement on Hugh Lanes gallery of modern art. (See Adrian Frazier,
Paris, Dublin: Looking at George Moore Looking at Manet,
in New Hibernia Review, 1, 1, Spring 1997, pp.19-30; also Alan
Denson, Letters from AE (London: Abelard-Schuman 1961), p.54
- as given under Jane Barlow, Notes, supra.
St. John Ervine, Some
Impressions of My Elders (NY 1922), incl. remarks on Lady Gregory
in a section more generally on Yeats: When one remembers that she
has established a considerable reputation as a dramatist on two continents
entirely on the strength of a half-dozen one act plays, it is impossible
to doubt that she is at least as skilful as he [Yeats] in drawing attention
to herself. (p.260.)
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Maud Gonne reports that she
was confronted by Lady Gregory (a queer old lady, rather like Queen
Victoria) who asked her if I would marry Willie Yeats,
and adds that Gregory was rather relieved when she said no.
(See Anthony Jordan, The Yeats Gonne MacBride Triangle, Westport
2000, pp.15-16.)
G. B. Shaw called her the
greatest living Irishwoman and attacked the Irish nationality
of Devoy (not an Irish name); the company was taken to court
by Irish-Americans in Philadelphia, the plaintiff being Joseph McGarrrity;
in the NY Evening Sun, during the troublesome Abbey American
tour of 1911-12; Lady Gregory advised by G. B. Shaw to leave Ireland
for Scotland in 1925, Sell Coole and settle here, you will find
all the beauties of Irland with the drawback of Irish inhabitants;
see Lucy McDiarmid, reviewing Dan H Laurence and Nicholas Grene, Shaw,
Lady Gregory and the Abbey, A correspondence and a Record (Gerrards
Cross 1993).
Alexander Irvine: Irvine
dedicated his My Lady of the Chimney Corner (4th imp. 1914) To/Lady
Gregory / and / The Players of the Abbey Theatre / Dublin. (Why?)
Eoin MacNeill wrote in
a letter to Lady Gregory on reading Cuchulain of Muirthemne,
A few more books like it, and the Gaelic League will want to suppress
you on a double indictment, to wit, depriving the Irish language of
her sole right to express the innermost Irish mind, and secondly, investing
the Anglo-Irish language with a literary dignity it has never hitherto
possessed. (Ladey Gregory, Seventy Years, Gerrards Cross, 1974,
p.402; cited in Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translations,
Languages, Cultures, Cork UP 1996, p.150.)
James Joyce (1) In Ulysses
Buck Mulligan refers to Gregory of the Golden Mouth, in a reference to
a place-name from J. M. Synges Riders to the Sea, being the
Bay where the body of Bartley is washed up.
Ulysses (Scylla
& Charybdis) - Buck Mulligan: Longworth is awfully sick,
he said, after what you wrote about that old hake Gregory. O you inquisitional
drunken jew jesuit! She gets you a job on the paper and [277] then you
go and slate her drivel to Jaysus. Couldnt you do the Yeats touch?
(Bodley Head Edn., 1960; pp.277-78.) E. V. Longworth was the editor
of the Dublin Daily Express and Lady Gregorys Poets
and Dreamers the book in question (26 March 1903; Critical Writings
of James Joyce [1959] Viking Press 1965, pp.102-05.
James Joyce (2): Joyce
wrote a limerick on Lady Gregory: There was an old lady named Gregory
/ Who cried, Come, all ye poets in beggary. / She found her
imprudence / when hundreds of students / Cried, Were in that
noble category. (Quoted in Richard Ellmann, James Joyce
1959 [q.p.]); also in Stan Gebler Davies, James Joyce: A Portrait of
the Artist, 1975, p.116 - remarking that Padraic Colum could recite
it. Note that the authorship is disputed with Gogarty but generally ascribed
to Joyce.
Oliver St John Gogarty
- who wrote that Lady Gregory mostly inspired terror in Abbey actors -
remarked of W. B. Yeatss tour of Italy with her in 1907 that it
must have been like seeing it from inside it from inside a Black Maria.
(See R. F. Foster, R. F. Foster, W . B. Yeats: A Life - I: “The
Apprentice Mage, OUP 1997, p.367, citing Horace Reynolds diary
for 6 July 1927 [held in Harvard].)
Harry Clarke: The Story Brought by Brigit
by Lady Gregory is the subject of a panel in the stained-glass Geneva
Window of Harry Clarke (1929).
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Mervyn Wall: Wall portrays
Lucian Brewse Burke, the hero, writing thus to the newspapers: During
the fifteen years office of the de Valera Government mansions all over
the country were levelled to provide material for labourers cottages
or for the sake of the lead in the roof; and no one in power
raised a hand to save them. Countless material relics of our history were
swept away. I need scarcely mention Coole, the residence of Lady Gregory
and the birthplace of our literary movement. Today event he site of the
house can scarcely be identified. The castle at Barrettstown is the only
object which gives dignity to that town, and not only its it a piece of
our countrys history but it is associated with one of the greatest
of our love stories. There is now a new government in power … Are
they also indifferent, and must we few in this country who care for the
things of the spirit reconcile ourselves to living in a land of labourers
cottages and country council houses? (Leaves for the Burning, 1952,
p.18; cited in Patrick Rafroidi, A Question of Inheritance: The
Anglo-Irish Tradition, in Rafroidi and Maurice Harmon, eds, The
Irish Novel in Our Time, Université de Lille 1975-76, p.13.)
Derek Mahon has
written, wrote, Molière is at home everywhere and in every
age adding that Lady Gregory play Lavare [based on
Molière] had a good run at the Abbey. (q.p.), in his Preface to
High Time: A Comedy in One Act (Field Day 1984; Gallery 1985).
Coole Park, near Gort, Co.
Galway; home of Lady Gregory; guests icl. W. B. Yeats (20 years each summer
from 1897 to his marriage), OCasey, Shaw, Synge, Hyde, AE
(George Russell), et al. The trunk of a robust copper beech in the garden
holds many signatures - the Autograph tree which sports the
initials of Jack Yeats (with and an engraved donkey from his hand), Synge,
Hyde (An Craoibhin), John Masefield, Augustus John (who also carved his
signature at the top of the tree), Katherine Tynan, Violet Martin, Lady
Gregory herself and her son Robert Gregory. The Coole Park estate was
orig. 8,000 acres. The house was built by Robert Gregory, and English
colonial officer who purchased the estate in 1768, having made money as
chairman of the Honourable East India Company. He was sometime MP for
Rochester. Arthur Young visited Coole in 1778 and remarked on Robert Gregorys
noble nursery, for which he is making plantations. An eldest
son was disinherited on account of his passion for cock-fighting but it
attributed with the feat of transporting the statue of Maecenas in the
walled garden across Europe by ox-cart. A second son William Gregory inherited
instead, and became Under-Secretary for Ireland, 1812-32. He was the first
in the line to treat Coole as his home, and planted the pinetum in the
Nut Wood, being a self-confessed Coniferomaniac (Feehan &
ODonovan, p.61.) In 1855 he had to sell off two-thirds of his estate
to pay for racing debts. Having failed to provide his tenants with leases,
he abandoned them to the incoming rack-rent owners and emigration in spite
of good intentions. [Cont.]
Coole Park (cont.): His son William Henry Gregory
(1817-1892) served as Governor of Ceylon and was an MP for his own constituency
during the Famine and after. In 1880, following the death of first wife,
he married Isabella Augusta Persse of Roxborough House, then 27. The
sale of the remainder of the estate to the Encumbered Estates Board
[Land Commission] was initiated by Robert in 1908 and later concluded
by his widow Margaret in 1920 - on the condition that Lady Gregory retain
life tenancy. House and demesne were sold on to the Irish Forestry Commission
in 1927. Three months after Lady Gregorys death in 1932 the entire
contents of the house were auctioned while house itself was pointlessly
demolished by a farmer who acquired it in 1941 [var. 1942]. Lady Gregory
wrote: I have lived there and loved it these forty years and through
the guests who have stayed there it counts for much in the awakening
of the spiritual and intellectual side of our country. If there is trouble
now, and it is dismantled and left to ruin, that will be the whole countrys
loss. (q.source.) Among the many poems that W. B. Yeats wrote
at and about Coole Park are: I walked among the seven woods of
Coole, In the Seven Woods, Coole Park, 1929,
Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931, and The New Faces.
See Lady Gregory, Coole (1931; enl. edn., Gerrard Cross 1971),
and John Feehan & Grace ODonovan, The Magic of Coole,
[Dublin:] OPW 1993) - the latter dealing with the natural history of
the estate and its immediate region.
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Tithe-proctor:
In Captain Rock (1824) Thomas Moore cited a report in the Galway
Advertiser (18 Oct. 1822) reporting that [a]t the quarter-sessions
at Gort, one tithe-proctor processed eleven hundred persons for tithes.
They were all, or most, of the lower order of farmers or peasants: - the
expense of each process about eight shillings. (Captain Rock,
1824, p.297n.)
Portraits (1): an oil by John Butler Yeats [NGI];
Lady Gregory by Antonio Mancini c.1905, Municipal Gallery; see in Brian
ODoherty, The Irish Imagination 1959-1971 (1971), Rosc Exhib.
Cat.
Portraits (2): also Lady Gregory by Jacob Epstein
(see Anne Cruikshank, Ulster Mus. 1965); also rep. in A. N. Jeffares,
W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet (London: Routledge 1949 & Edns.),
pls., between pp.182-83.
Portraits (3): portrait in oil by Gerald Festus
Kelly (b.1879); and another by William Orpen in portrait in the National
Gallery of Ireland; a bronze figure by Melanie le Brocquy entitled Under
the Tulipa Tree (c.1985), held in private collections.
Berg Collection (New York Public Library holds extensive papers
of Lady Gregory including chiefly AMS of poems, also letters with correspondence
relating to royal visit of Edward VII, and a copy of James Joyces
limerick on Lady Gregory (poets in beggary …; as
infra) in her own hand, Irish Statesman,
dated 1 June 1928, and a copy of a 1p. letter from Joyce, 22 Nov. 1902,
7 St Peters Tce. Cabra.
Note also the phrases given to Stephen Dedalus in Telemachus
episode of Ulysses: Thats folk, he said very earnestly,
for your book, Haines, Five lines of text and ten pages of notes about
the folk and fish gods of Dundrum. Printed by the wiered sisters in
the year of the big wind.
Death-dates: Lady Gregorys death is given as 28 [sic]
April 1932 in Jeffares, 1988; 22 April, in Boylan, Dictionary of
Irish Biography (1988); but correctly as first hour of 23 Monday
April 1932, in Journals (ed. Murphy). In Commentary on the
Poems of W B Yeats (1988), Jeffares gives the date of the demolition
of Coole as 1942 (p.93).
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