YEATS'S EPIPHANY: HIS QUEST FOR THE LAST MASKS

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Publisher's original ivory cloth, with titles in gilt to the spine, in the pictorial dustwrapper. A very near fine copy, the binding square and tight, with a little bumping and a tiny blue mark to the top edge of the front board, the cloth and gilt remain bright and fresh. With distinctive orange, textured endpapers. The contents, with just a couple of spots to the closed text block edge, are clean throughout. Complete with the bright, lightly creased dustwrapper, that is without fading, loss or tears.

Inscribed by the author in black ink on the front endpaper "For Professor Ronsley / and Mrs Ronsley / with the best wishes / of the author / 11 July 1990 / Shiro Naito". The recipient is Joseph Ronsley a prominent Yeats scholar and Professor of English at McGill University, who was the author of 'Yeats's Autobiography: Life as Symbolic Pattern'. Naito was a Japanese scholar whose work focused particularly on Yeats, Zen Buddhism and the relationship between Eastern thought and Yeats's poetry. In his preface, he explains that the book brings together three essays examining Yeats's later thought through Zen Buddhism, Ainu religious traditions and the Indian poet Kabir. He considers how these Eastern influences contributed to Yeats's spiritual development and the transformation of his "Mask" during his final phase.