Per Amica Silentia Lunae. London: Macmillan, 1918. First Edition. Pp vi, 95, uncut. Decorated cloth covers, with gilt decorations by Struge Moore. In publisher’s white dust jacket lettered in blue.

A fine bright copy, in the rare dust jacket. One of 1500 copies printed.

A philosophical and mystical prose work the title, translating to “Through the Friendly Silence of the Moon,” reflects Yeats’s fascination with the occult, the supernatural, and the inner life of the artist.

Critically, Per Amica Silentia Lunae is significant for its articulation of Yeats’s evolving mystical thought, bridging his earlier Romanticism with the more systematic esotericism of A Vision (1925). Stylistically, it blends poetic prose with philosophical speculation, offering key insights into Yeats’s later poetry and his theories on masks, daimons, and cyclical history.

The book is divided into two sections: “Anima Hominis” (The Soul of Man) and “Anima Mundi” (The Soul of the World). In Anima Hominis, Yeats explores the creative process, the duality of the self, and the conflict between an artist’s worldly and spiritual aspirations. Anima Mundi delves into collective consciousness, the afterlife, and the idea that human souls are interconnected through a universal memory.