The Countess Cathleen

Originally published in 1892, The Countess Cathleen aroused fierce controversy when it was first performed, in a radically revised version, in 1899. The play was frequently revived and almost as often revised, becoming at various points in Yeats's career a decisive indicator of his relations with his literary and theatrical public, of his changing conception of dramatic form, and of the status of his pursuit of Maud Gonne, for whom the play was written. This volume in the Cornell Yeats reproduces the complete set of extant manuscripts preceding the play's first publication and reassembles the extensive manuscript, proof, and authorial copy now distributed in archives in Ireland, England, and the United States to present a crucial body of evidence of Yeats's work and thought in drama and theater over the course of three decades. In addition to its authoritative introductory essay on the genesis of Yeats's most revised work, the book provides a comprehensive descriptive census and chronology of the manuscripts, a bibliographic account of the editions and printings in Yeats's lifetime, a table of the major revisions by act and scene, and appendixes giving the English and French sources of the play and the notes with the playwright's own corrections.