THE TOWER

First edition, first printing. Original green cloth with an elaborate gilt design by T. Sturge Moore to upper board and spine, without the dustwrapper. Edges untrimmed. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, with a little rubbing and softening to spine tips and a touch of rubbing to the gilt. The contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. A lovely copy.

The collection included 'Sailing to Byzantium', 'Meditations in Time of Civil War', 'Leda and the Swan, 'All Souls Night', as well as the extended title poem, 'The Tower' which is by common consent among the poet's greatest achievements. In his 1941 study of Yeats, Louis Macneice declared the volume (along with 'The Winding Stair' [1933]) to be "the highest achievement of Yeats's genius". 2000 copies of the first edition were printed. (Wade 158; Cyril Connolly: 100 Key Books of the Modern Movement).