Rejoinder

Book Reviews Volume 32:3, 1989 REJOINDER LN THE INTERESTS OF HISTORICAL ACCURACY, I would like to offer some facts concerning the start of The Coole Edition of Lady Gregory's Works that wül doubtless be of interest to Professor Petersen, who reviewed the second volume of Lady Gregory's Journals in ELT (32:2, 1989, 245-48). I was invited by T. R. Henn to lecture on Lady Gregory at the 1968 Yeats International Summer School in Sligo. During the time I was there, another lecturer, Lester Conner, asked me why I was not publishing her works. I had recently started my own publishing company, but although I was working on a Bibliography of Lady Gregory's writings, our publishing program was, for the most part, in the field of religious and moral education, and apart from Peter Bander's The Prophecies of St Malachy & St Clumbkille, none of our publications had any Irish connection. Needless to say, Les Conner's suggestion set me thinking, and I got together all the texts of Lady Gregory's works that I knew existed, and considered how they could be published. At this stage, I decided to ask T. R. Henn's help, and invited him to become joint General Editor of what I proposed to call The Coole Edition of Lady Gregory's Works, a task he very generously agreed to undertake. It was obvious that his experience and the prestige of his name would greatly benefit the project. We decided how to divide up the volumes (decisions, in the light of our later, greater knowledge of what is in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library, we would have changed in some cases), and agreed on a total of eighteen volumes . Later, with the agreement of Oxford University Press which was taking a small proportion of our printings for the US market, Dan Murphy's two volume edition of Lady Gregory's Journals was transferred to the Edition; her autobiography, Seventy Years (the typescript of which was found in the home of Robert Gregory's widow in 1972), was added to the Edition, and on finding that the amount of material about Robert Gregory was not sufficient to make a volume, we decided to replace it with a volume of Lady Gregory's lectures. Sixteen volumes have so far been published: five remain. I am presently working, whenever I have some time, on a biographical index for Sir William Gregory's Autobiography (volume 20), the next to appear, I hope, before Christmas 1989. It will be followed by the Lectures, the Shorter Writings, and finally the General Index and Bibliography volume. 395 Book Reviews Volume 32:3, 1989 In 1973 I published the Guide to Coole Park, which has received considerable acclaim: Tom's advice made that book what it was, improving a phrase here and there, and suggesting appropriate quotations. After Tom's death, I published his Last Essays (renamed from its original title, The Weasel's Tooth, a quotation from Yeats) and a double volume containing his autobiography, Seven Arches, with his collected poetry Philoctetes, and Other Poems. These were my small tributes to the memory of a remarkable man, the doyen of Anglo-Irish literary criticism of his time. Colin Smythe Buckinghamshire, England • Briefer Mention · Bloom, Harold, ed. D. H. Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers' and D. H. Lawrence's 'The Rainbow'. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. Each $19.95 Two additions to Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations Series: the Sons and Lovers volume reprints 9 articles (or chapters from books) by Dorothy Van Ghent, H. M. Daleski, and Daniel R. Schwarz, among others. Bloom offers a four-page introduction. Bloom's introduction to The Rainbow collection is more detailed; it prefaces six essays which are reprints of earlier critical works. Owen, Wilfred. Selected Poetry and Prose. Jennifer Breen, ed. New York and London: Routledge [English Texts Series], 1988. Paper $12.95 £5.95 Breen gives us a useful introduction which sketches Owens's life, his experience in the war, and incapsulates his reception by poets and critics. Poetry and letters are given roughly equal space in this 268page volume. Breen prints complete poems in...