The Shadowy Waters. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1901. First Edition Thus. Publisher’s decorative wrappers, title lettered in red to upper cover. A very good copy. Housed in cloth solander box.

Publisher’s Seasonal Gift Edition with publisher’s label to front free endpaper.

The Shadowy Waters, a verse play that Yeats conceived and began writing in 1884, is called by R.M. Foster his ‘eternal work-in-progress.’ The play proved almost impossible to stage. There was a private performance for Yeats and Steven Gwynn at in London in April of 1904, a production at the Theosophical Society staged by Florence Flarr in 1905 (loathed by Yeats), and further rewrites over subsequent years.

The play first appeared in print in ‘The North American Review’ on 1st May 1900.

[Wade 31]