xv, [i], 314 printed pages. Title-page in red and black. Original tissue guarded portrait frontispiece, ‘W. B. Yeats’. Fore edges untrimmed. Pages 3-6 unopened. Printed by the Gresham Press, Unwin Brothers Limited, Woking and London. Contemporary light blue bookseller's label on front paste-down endpaper, 'J. Hall & Sons, Trumpington Street, Cambridge'. Contemporary owner's pencil signature on front free endpaper, dated 1920. Provenance: R.J. Lythgoe. Lythgoe (1896-1940) was a phycicist, opthalmologist, and neural researcher at the Medical Research Council who made advances in the study of human visual capacity. He went to Mercers' School and Trinity College, Cambridge, when, at the age of nineteen, he joined the Royal Garrison Artillery, in which he served throughout the 1914-18 War, experiencing heavy and nerve-wracking fighting. While Yeats himself didn't directly serve in the RGA, his poems sometimes alluded to the potential for chaos and the collapse of existing orders, a theme that resonated with the uncertainty and instability of the period during which the RGA played a key role in defending Britain's coastlines and providing support to ground forces, particularly in WWI. Yeats's visual acuity was a topic of discussion, with some, like Robert Lowell, suggesting he had poor eyesight. However, this was often interpreted in a metaphorical sense, referring to his ability to see beyond the physical world into realms of imagination and symbolism rather than his actual physical vision. Very occasional and slight spotting. 150 x 215 mm. Original blue cloth boards with Althea Gyles blind tooled decorations to the covers; , gilt title and decoration to the spine. Spine very slightly rubbed.