Stories of Red Hanrahan and The Secret Rose. Illustrated and Decorated by Norah McGuinness. London: Macmillan, 1927. First Edition. Pp, 182. Two plates in colour. Smooth blue buckram boards, front cover and spine beautifully decorated and ruled in gilt. Some wear to corners and light shelf-wear otherwise a good copy. With old bookseller sticker to front free endpaper. Lacks dust jacket.

Illustrated with Two plates in colour & several line drawings in black & white.

Derry born McGuinness was a student when she first met W.B. Yeats in 1920s Dublin, and was just 22 when she designed a Drama League production of his play ‘The Only Jealousy of Emer’. Yeats was so impressed with Norah’s work that he later invited her to illustrate his version of Stories of Red Hanrahan and the Secret Rose (1905) which was republish in 1927. By obtaining this commission, McGuinness had not only proven that her modernist drawing style was suitable for Ireland’s most esteemed poet, but she was also guaranteed that the publication would be widely distributed.

[Wade 157].