The Variorum Edition Of The Poems Of W. B. Yeats ed. by Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach. Macmillan. $18.50.
Towards the end of 1930 Yeats had arranged with Macmillan to bring out an edition de luxe of all his work published and unpublished. Contemplating the nine months that remained before his manuscripts were to be ready for the printer, he wrote to Olivia Shakespeare, “I am to be ready next autumn at latest. Months of re-writing. What happiness!” The words sum up a life-time’s habit, so that of Yeats’s poems there are often several printed versions as well as the numerous work-sheets, fair copies, and typescripts preserved chiefly in the hands of Georgia Yeats. This variorum edition collates all printed versions of poems included in the 1949 definitive edition, collates all notes, prefaces, and dedications originally printed with the poems, and reprints all poems printed at least once but not included in the 1949 edition.
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