YEATS (W.B.)


Typescript draft, with autograph revisions and corrections, of his play The Words upon the Window Pane, signed and inscribed by him on the title: "This play is part of a book I have arranged for the printer with the help of my secretary for a month & my friend for many years – Allen Duncan/ WB Yeats, March 1931", the typed subscription dated from Coole Park, October 1930, 26 pages plus title-page, on typing-paper, watermarked 'Charles Marten/ Extra Strong', original typing-office limp wrappers, some slight dust-staining, upper corner torn, 4to, typed subscription "W.B. Yeats/ Coole Park/ October 1930", signed and inscribed, March 1931
|'THIS PLAY IS PART OF A BOOK I HAVE ARRANGED FOR THE PRINTER' – TYPESCRIPT DRAFT OF YEATS'S WORDS UPON THE WINDOW PANE, widely seen as one of his finest works. He had begun what he called his 'Swift Play', in which the Dean and his Vanessa are invoked at a séance, in August 1930 and it was nearly complete a month later: 'On many levels, it was the best play WBY had written (or would write), and emerged with astonishing speed: the first handwritten draft of the scenario is surprisingly full. Swift's harangue against Vanessa remained much as first written – it spills on to the page almost as if WBY himself were possessed. And Swift's last terrible cry as the kettle boils stays unchanged from the first draft. Its apparent dramatic simplicity works all the more strongly because of the philosophical and historical inflections which shadow it. It could be enjoyed by an audience as no other play he wrote, but was underpinned by WBY's ideas about history and supernaturalism' (R.F. Foster, W.B. Yeats: A Life II: The Arch-Poet 1915-1939, 2003, p.410). Yeats was to write a long introduction expounding the philosophical and historical theories behind the play in the summer of 1931. Begun at Coole in September, the play was finished on 4 October, and opened at the Abbey on 17 November. The volume was published by the Cuala Press in 1934, and is dedicated to the memory of Lady Gregory, who for Yeats personified the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy commemorated by the play, and who had died in 1932.The first draft of the play is contained in the Rapallo Notebook E, now held by the National Library of Ireland (NLI 13,582). An autograph revised fair copy is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard, signed and dated, Coole Park, October 1930 (f MS Eng 338.9). From this was prepared a ribbon-typescript, with scattered autograph corrections and revisions, comprising 26 pages numbered from 1 to 27 (with no page 21); on paper watermarked 'Swift Brook Bond' and/or 'Extra Superfine' (National Library of Ireland, 8768/2). The National Library also holds a pair of carbons, the second of which has been marked up for performance. These are on similarly watermarked paper to 8768/2 but derive from a different ribbon-typescript (NLI 8768/3 & 4). Although we have not had opportunity to make direct comparison, it seems likely that ours is the ribbon-typescript from which the twin carbons NLI 8768/3 & 4 derive. For a full account, together with facsimiles of the first three items, see The Words Upon the Window Pane: Manuscript Material, edited by Mary Fitzgerald (2002).Most of Yeats's annotations to our typescript are corrections or clarifications, although there are three authorial revisions: on the first page the adjective introducing Mrs Mackenna is changed from "energetic" to "enthusiastic" (only to revert to the original version when published); on p.20 of the typescript Mrs Mackenna's line is deleted: "It was as though we had come suddenly out of a crowded room into stillness and darkness" and the next line re-assigned from "James" Corbet to Mrs Mallet; and on p.23 part of John Corbet's speech is deleted.Alan Duncan, husband of Belinda to whom Yeats's photograph in the present sale is inscribed, was to serve as Yeats's secretary during his last tour of the United States in 1932, as well as the stint referred to by Yeats in his inscription. After Alan Duncan's death, Belinda married Brian Lunn, whose daughter Brigit gave it to the present owner.