Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms & Superstitions of Ireland. With Sketches of the Irish Past. New Edition. London: Chatto, 1902. Pp xii, 347, [32]. Publisher’s pictorial cloth boards. Light wear to spine, scattered spotting to contents pages.

First published in two volumes in 1887.

A fine collection of Irish legends, superstitions, and ancient charms, obtained chiefly from oral communications made by the peasantry themselves, either in Irish or in the Irish-English which preserves so much of the expressive idiom of the antique tongue.

Lady Jane Wilde “Speranza” was a poet & writer under the pen name “Speranza” She published in Dublin’s ‘The Nation’ newspaper , expressing her pro-Irish independence and anti-British views. Married to the surgeon & antiquarian, William Wilde, their son was one of Ireland’s literary greats, Oscar Wilde.