YOUNG, Ella Celtic Wonder-Tales

8vo., lettered and decorated with Celtic devices in white to upper and spine; pp. [vi], vii-viii, [ii], 3-201, [iii]; containing four beautiful full-colour plates, mounted onto brown card and embellished in silver and gold; along with numerous other initials, head and tail pieces, and decorative devices in black and white throughout; covers good, soiled and darkened at edges with fading to the lettering at backstrip; corners bumped and spine tips pushed; a couple of small patches of fading to the lower board; internally remarkably clean, upper edge of text block darkened and a couple of spots to the fore-edge occasionally extending to prelims; previous owners name in pencil to front paste-down, along with a much faded early inscription, now barely decipherable. 

First edition of this collection of celtic folk tales which include The Earth-Shapers, The Cow of Plenty, The Golden Fly and The Children of Lir. 

Ella Young was born in 1867 into a protestant family in the village of Feenagh, County Antrim. After receiving a masters degree at Trinity College, Dublin, she became interested in Theosophy, and became an early member of the Hermetic Society, where she became associated with a series of Irish writers including George William Russell. She subsequently became one of his select group of protégés known as the "singing birds". Her first volume of poems was published in 1906, and her first work of Irish folklore, The Coming of Lugh, was published in 1909, the first collaboration with her friend, the revolutionary and suffragette Maud Gonne. The present volume followed one year later. Young is best remembered today for her folk-lore, which she continued to write about in earnest following a series of fairy experiences. She later wrote that: "from childhood I heard tales of ghosts, banshees, haunted castles, mischievous and friendly sprites, snatches of ballads, and political arguments ... It was not until I came to Dublin…that I realized what a heritage waited for me in Celtic literature. I read every translation I could get, learned Irish, and betook myself to Gaelic Ireland where, by turf fires, I could hear the poems of the Fianna recited by folk who had heard the faery music and had danced in faery circles ..." 

Maud Gonne was a friend and lover to W. B. Yeats, and through him she began to be involved with the occultist circles in which he moved, developing a strong interest in reincarnation. In 1891 she too briefly joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Her deeply evocative images here have deeply spiritualist undertones, with altars, mothers and children and nymph-like gods alongside recurring images of swans. 

Together, Young and Gonne produce a deeply spiritual and mystical work based on their knowledge of Irish fairy tales. They later founded Inghinidhe na hÉireann ("Daughters of Ireland"), alongside writers such as Alice Furlong and Ethna Carbery.  

A beautiful production, very fresh internally. 

SKU: 1800247