Books by W. Yeats

I have desired, like every artist, to create a little world out of the beautiful, pleasant, and significant things of this marred and clumsy world and to show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any of my own people who would look where I bid them. I have therefore written down accurately and candidly much that I have heard and seen, and, except by way of commentary, nothing that I have merely imagined. I have, however, been at no pains to separate my own beliefs from those of the peasantry, but have rather let my men and women, ghouls and færies, go their way unoffended or defended by any argument of mine. The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best. I too have woven my garment like another, but I shall try to keep warm in it, and shall be well content if it do not unbecome me. Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a little. -- W.B. Yeats

John Sherman is the only work of realistic fiction Yeats ever completed. The novelette contains many biographical elements and is of interest for its treatment of Yeats's recurring themes. Dhoya depicts a liaison between a mortal and a fairy, a motif that recurs in Yeats's poetry and other works.

This title contains six autobiographical works that Yeats published in the mid 1930s. Together, they provide a fascinating insight into the first 58 years of his life. The work provides memories of his early childhood, through to his experience of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.