The Aran Islands. By J.M. Synge. With Drawings by Jack B. Yeats. Dublin: Maunsel & Co., 1907. First Edition, Limited Issue. Pp, 489. All edges untrimmed. Small folio, bound in publisher’s linen boards, margins doubled ruled in gilt, title embossed in gilt on front cover, and on spine. Light scuffing to spine with a minor perforation mark to outer hinge along spine, upper & lower boards clean; light browning to endpapers. The contents pages in fine condition throughout with the colouring to the plates bright and fresh.

Large Paper Edition, One Hundred & Fifty Copies Printed on Handmade Paper. This copy number 59, Signed by J.M. Synge and Jack B. Yeats.

Copy limitation number ‘59’ has been overwritten in blue ink. It appears that the number ‘58’ was originally written in black ink underneath however due to this copy bearing a duplicate number the error was subsequently corrected.

Containing the following twelve plates, hand coloured by Jack B. Yeats: (1) An Island Man; (2) The Pier; (3) The Hooker’s Owner; (4) Kelp-Making; (5) The Evictions; (6) Carrying Seaweed For Kelp; (7) A Four-Oared Curagh; (8) Man On Pier; (9) Thatching; (10) Porter; (11) An Island Horseman; (12) The Man Who Told The Stories.

John Millington Synge (1871-1909), Irish poet and dramatist, born near Dublin, of Protestant parents. He was an important figure in the Irish Literary renaissance. As a young man he studied music in Germany and later lived in Paris, where he wrote literary criticism. In Paris he met his compatriot William Butler Yeats, who persuaded Synge to live for a while in the Aran Islands and then return to Dublin and devote himself to creative work. Synge first travelled to the primitive, little-known Aran Islands in 1898. His trip proved to be a wonderfully fruitful and decisive experience. He then went back for part of each summer until 1902.  The Aran Islands, his memoir of those experiences, was published in 1907, and the future playwright called it his ‘first serious piece of work.’

Copies bearing both signatures are particularly scarce as Synge signed only a small number of the limited issue, perhaps because of his ill-health.