Life in The West of Ireland. Drawn and Painted by Jack B. Yeats. Dublin: Maunsel & Co., 1912. First Edition. Pp, 111. Publisher’s blue cloth boards with gilt title and illustration on front cover. Light shelf-wear but overall a near fine copy. Contains seven plates in colour, 32 line drawings and 16 reproductions from paintings.

Card tipped-in to front free endpaper, inscribed: “From Jack B. Yeats to Miss M. O’Toole, with all good Wishes & Many Thanks.”

Jack B. Yeats spent his boyhood in Sligo with his grandparents & the influence of these early years remained with him all his life. Yeats at first painted the west of Ireland from afar before the first of a series of trips there in 1898. Over the following years he held a number of exhibitions, entitled ‘Sketches of Life in the West of Ireland,’ in London and Dublin.

Jack Yeats also illustrated Synge’s book ‘The Aran Islands’ (1907) and was consulted by Synge about the costumes for ‘The Playboy of the Western World.’