The Tain. Illustrated by Seaghan Mac Cathmhaoil. Dublin: Talbot Press, [1924]. Second Edition. Pp, xii] 495. Publisher’s buff cloth boards, lettered in gilt with Celtic style border blocked to upper cover. Ex library copy with stamps & residue of pasted labels to front endpapers. Still a very nice copy.

Beautifully illustrated with pen and ink style plates by Joseph Campbell.

The Táin, known in English as ‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley,’ is one of the great Irish Sagas. There are many translations and illustrated versions. It is an epic tale, first written in the 7th century but preserved in various versions from the 11th to the 14th centuries with many modifications, additions and changes along the way. It tells the story of Queen Maeve, jealous of her husband’s white-horned bull, who determines to acquire the even more prestigious Brown Bull of Cooley from Ulster, ignoring the foretelling of a dreadful outcome should she proceed.

This version by Mary Hutton & illustrated by Joseph Campbell, deserves to be remembered as one of the masterpieces of the Irish literary and artistic revival. The first edition published in 1907 was not illustrated.