AE - see George Russell

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Ernest Boyd (1887-1946). Born in Dublin, he moved to New York City in 1920 where he became an important literary figure. Boyd wrote on the literary movements in Ireland, these writings include his books Contemporary Drama in Ireland and Ireland’s Literary Renaissance. In the undated note from Lady Gregory, that this collection holds, it is not known what phrase Boyd is interested in nor for what project. 1

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"Padraig Colum did always send money home to help, but his wife has been ill & he hasn’t been able to help lately—"2

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Alfred Tennyson De Lury (1864 - 1951) was born in Manilla (west of Lindsay on highway 7), Ontario, on May 13, 1864. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Toronto and the dean of arts from 1922-1935. He was President of the Royal Canadian Astronomical Society 1910-1911, Captain of the University of Toronto Rifle Association 1904-1906 and a member of the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto. He wrote several mathematical textbooks as well as biographies of astronomers. An avid collector of works from the Irish Renaissance authors he became good friends with Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, publisher of Irish Literature through the Cuala Press and sister of William Butler Yeats. His interest in the Irish poets and literature of the time led him into friendships with many members of the Irish Renaissance scene, including George Russell (AE), John Eglinton (Magee), Shane Leslie, Lennox Robinson, W.B. Yeats and his family, etc. These letters give insight into the Irish literary scene and the Irish Home Rule Movement which were tightly intertwined. He retired to Manilla and died on November 12th 1951.

Note that DeLury is acting as chair in both lecture posters from the Kidd Collection: George Russell (AE) Lecture & Lennox Robinson Lecture

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"I hear W.K. Magee is leaving Ireland. They won’t drive us out!"4 Magee"regards us all as folk who make heroes out of ruffians"5

John Eglinton (William Kirkpatrick Magee) (1868-1961) was born in Dublin but left Ireland during the Civil War - like many who could. In the De Lury letters it is Eglinton who personifies the desire to flee Ireland in the face of violence and war. Elizabeth Yeats, and George Russell discuss their feelings about Eglinton's (and others') escape in the letters. See letters 33-2, 39, 40, 41

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Maud Gonne (1865 -1953) is infamous for being W. B. Yeats’ unrequited love interest and being a revolutionary leader of the Irish Home Rule movement. She sought out Yeats in 1889 following the publication of The Wanderings of Oisin and other Poems. From the start Maud Gonne was interested in Yeats to help inspire the Home Rule Movement and to go on “writing for Ireland.”7 Yeats fell in love with her and was to be tormented for years by her staunch independence and rebellious nature. This tortured love inspired a large portion of his poetry and the play Cathleen Ni Houlihan (The Countess Cathleen). Maud Gonne helped Yeats to form The Abbey Theatre, The National Theatre of Ireland, and formed on her own the Daughters of Erin, a revolutionary women’s group. In 1903 Maud Gonne unexpectedly married John MacBride, a revolutionary who would later be executed as a leader of the Easter Rebellion of 1916. She had already refused Yeats' marriage proposal several times, and after her husband’s death would have to refuse him again. Maud Gonne lived well into old age and died in 1953 at the age of 88. See the Letter Maud Gonne to Byrne

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Eva Gore-Booth (1870 - 1928) - member of a prominent family from Sligo Bay. WB Yeats befriended the family during his rise in fame and helped to direct Eva Gore-Booth's writing. She was the editor of women's labour news and her sister, Constance Markievicz, was among those arrested and sentenced to death during the Easter Rising (although her sentence was later lifted). W.B. Yeats spent some winters at Lissadell, their home in Sligo, where this letter is sent from.

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Lady Augusta Gregory (1852 - 1932) was a playwright and an important friend of William Butler Yeats. W.B. Yeats collaborated with Lady Gregory on several plays and they also conceived of the Abbey Theatre together. It was also Lady Gregory's property Coole Park that attracted W.B. Yeats for over 30 consecutive summers. Lady Gregory's son Robert Gregory was an accomplished artist himself. He designed several sets for the Abbey Theatre and did several works for the Cuala Press. The Great War cut his life short; he died in Italy in 1918. For a reference to this tragedy see Letter 23. A reference to Lady Gregory's refusal to leave Ireland: Letter 29. See also Lady Gregory's note to Ernest Boyd. The Trent University Special Collections holds a signed copy of Lady Gregory's My First Play. Click here to see the title page and signature.

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Douglas Hyde (1860 - 1949) was from the county of Sligo and founded the Gaelic League in 1893. He was one of the largest propagators of the Irish language and was president of the Gaelic League for several years. He became president of Ireland in 1938. See the Christmas letter from Douglas Hyde.

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Lily - see Susan Mary Yeats

Lolly- see Elizabeth Corbet Yeats

Maud Gonne MacBride - see Maud Gonne

William Kirkpatrick Magee - see John Eglinton

"Standish O'Grady... was at once all passion and all judgment." 9

Standish James O'Grady (1846 - 1928) was a poet and historian. He was one of the first Irish writers of the era to draw heavily on Gaelic myth & history. His writings inspired others, like W.B. Yeats, to delve into the past and take pride in their Irish Ancestry. See Letter 22

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The Pollexfen Family - The Pollexfens were from a different background than the Yeats family. Whereas the Yeats family were old gentry who had lost most of their income and social influence, the Pollexfens were just gaining their money through a shipping company. To make matters worse, William Pollexfen was a stubborn believer in Ireland remaining under the British crown, whereas John Yeats had much sympathy with the Home Rulers and Nationalists.

John Butler Yeats met Susan Pollexfen through her two older brothers whom he met at school. After spending a summer holiday with the Pollexfen family at Sligo Bay he fell in love with Susan. John and Susan quickly married without truly understanding each other's character, nor the pain they would cause each other. At the time of their meeting JBY was going to school to become a barrister. Soon after his marriage JBY deserted the law to become a professional artist, something he had always tinkered with. He never achieved monetary success and was consistently struggling. He became notorious for borrowing money and being short of cash.

There was a history of mental illness in the Pollexfen family and John Yeats often feared that it would come out in his own children. He attributed the less favourable qualities he found in his children to his wife's family and their Pollexfen heritage. John Butler Yeats is often quoted as saying "by marriage with a Pollexfen I have given a tongue to the sea cliffs."10

Susan Pollexfen thought she was marrying a barrister. She expected to be able to continue the middleclass lifestyle she was used to. John Butler Yeats left much in Susan Pollexfen's life to be desired. She was very unhappy and died early in 1900.

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Lennox Robinson (1886 - 1958) was a distinguished Irish author. He managed the Abbey Theatre for several years and also directed several plays. The Kidd Collection holds a lecture poster from a visit to Toronto by Robinson and several Abbey Theatre programs. Here is an Abbey Programme from August 1923. See Letters: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 27.

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George Russell (AE) (1867 - 1935), poet and artist, first met WBY in 1884 at the art school they were both attending. Russell called himself AE, short for 'aeon', because it had the connotation of being 'impersonal, unknown and obscure,' 11. Russell was a romantic, a bit eccentric and deeply interested in theosophy. He, like many other members of the Irish Renaissance, was a member of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society. Russell was the editor for the New Irish Statesman from 1923 to 1930, when the paper finished. He was also very vigilant in the rights of Irish Farmers and deeply interested in Irish Theatre and poetry.

He remained fairly close to WBY throughout his life, despite disagreements over the quality of his work and spiritual development. Elizabeth Yeats had agreed to publish a collection of Russell's poetry and began to set the type without first conferring with WBY about the quality of the work. WBY decided that the work was not good enough for the Cuala Press despite Elizabeth's protests. The dispute caused serious tension between Elizabeth, WBY and Russell. Russell also quarrelled with WBY over the right way to pursue proper spiritual development. Russell was more mystical, while WBY tread more towards magical experiments. Russell distanced himself from WBY and tried to warn him about his ambitions to no avail.

Russell married in 1898 to Violet North in a very private ceremony. His first son was born in 1899 but died a month later. His second son, Brian, was born the next year, and another son, Diarmuid would be born in 1902.

See Letters: 3, 12, 16, 18, 28, 31, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 & a Lecture Poster from the Kidd Collection: Monday April 13, 1931.

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John Millington Synge (1871 - 1909) was a playwright, most noted for his controversial play: The Playboy of the Western World. He was also a co-director at the Abbey Theatre with WB Yeats and Lady Gregory. Although this collection does not hold any letters from Synge, Letter 15 holds a reference to DeLury's search for first edition of Synge's Well of Saints.

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Katharine Tynan (1861 - 1931) was a poet, a great friend early in WB Yeats' career and a source of encouragement to him. She is also, probably, the first woman that WB Yeats' proposed to, although accounts vary. She was a published poet before WB Yeats and helped to form and encourage his work. She brought WB Yeats' to his first séance. Opposed to interest in the mystical and magical herself, she thought contact with a séance would make him recoil from future interest. She could not have been more wrong. A year later he had joined the Theosophical society and was deeply entrenched in the mystical and spiritual world. As WB Yeats became a successful poet his relationship with Tynan grew sour. Soon he referred to her as "prosy" and by 1898 he was referring to her poetry as "uninteresting"12.

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Elizabeth Corbet Yeats (Lolly) - (1868-1940) The majority of the letters in this collection come from Elizabeth Yeats. DeLury, to whom the letters were addressed, was a collector of Irish literature and Elizabeth Yeats and her Cuala Press were printing some of the most beautifully designed first editions of Irish Literature at the time.

Elizabeth Yeats, or Lolly, has been described often since her death as a cold, impersonal, spinster, but this impression does not come out in this collection, and has recently been refuted by two scholars, Gifford Lewis and Joan Hardwick. She is instead portrayed as a hard worker, who was very intelligent and did not ask much in return. The money she earned from her press went to her family. The money for her University education went to her father's debts instead of her schooling. Her older brother and sister, W.B. and Lily, treated her poorly most of the time and her father often thought that she had inherited some mental illness from her mother's side of the family. W.B. Yeats thought that the running of the press was too masculine for Lolly and had a hard time understanding that it was Lolly's press and not his (this was resolved after a rather large fight when ECY emphasized to WBY that it was her "own press"14). Other quarrels erupted between the siblings about WBY's spelling and grammatical errors which, unlike his other publishers, Elizabeth refused to accept as her own mistakes. Despite whatever might have been said about Elizabeth, as emphasized by Lewis, it was Miss E.C. Yeats who represented the Printing Press at fairs and in most other respects to the public, helping it to achieve the respect and reputation it came to be known for. It seems more likely that Elizabeth suffered from being an extremely intelligent, capable woman who was given little respect and few opportunities. Click here to see her letters.

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Georgie Yeats (nee Hyde Lees; wife of WBY) - (1892 - 1968) Mrs. W.B. Yeats, was a very private woman, who did not like the attention she received as wife of the poet. She met Yeats in May 1911; she was 18 and he was 46. Georgie was deeply interested in the occult. This was an interest she shared with W.B. and it led them to feed off each other's ideas and become close. George was particularly interested in automatic writing.

After W.B. Yeats' and E.C. Yeats' death, it was Georgie who took over the Cuala Press. She both edited and printed the works. Despite her involvement and her constant watch for new Irish poets and authors, she refused to put her name on the advertisements or bills for the Cuala Press. She insisted on keeping her distance from the press, and from most things political.

In the collection there is an exciting account of Mrs. W.B. Yeats' struggle to bring Anne Yeats, her daughter, to a doctor during the civil war. The account is found in Letter 33, E.C. Yeats to DeLury, July 24, 1922.

Other accounts of Georgie can be found in letters 35 and 38.

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Jack Yeats - (1871 - 1957) The youngest of the Yeats children, Jack was a successful artist overshadowed by his older brother. He did quite a bit of work for The Cuala Press and The Abbey Theatre as well as his own oil paintings. His oil paintings were popular and Alfred Tennyson De Lury took two paintings home with him in 1923. These paintings were found in 2003 on the property of DeLury's nephew and sold by an auction company in that same year. Jack got along with Elizabeth quite well in contrast to William or Lily.

The Yeats family were all very conscious of their fame and understood that what they wrote would be preserved. Jack, as well as Lily and their father John, all made conscious decisions to destroy certain letters and diaries to display a censored view of their lives. Jack, in particular, destroyed many of his papers.

Jack is mentioned in these letters: Letter 29, 30, 38 & 45

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John Butler Yeats (1839 - 1922) a very logical material, grounded man. He resented his son William's interest in the supernatural and therefore also resented George Russell who had such an influence on William's regard to mystic ideas.

Originally planning to be a barrister, John Butler Yeats gave up the law in order to be an artist without realizing the effect his actions had on others. He expected his daughters and wife to sacrifice their own needs and desires to finance his life. He did not worry about being financially dependent on them, or spending their savings to pay off his debts. It is this dependence, however, that forced the daughters to start Cuala Industries. Without this financial need it is possible that they would not have started the press. J.B.Y.'s wife, Susan Mary Pollexfen was very unhappy and embarassed with their financial situation.

Perhaps out of embarassement for being unable to finish an art contract on time, he fled to New York and did not return. His children continued to support him until death.

See Letters from John Butler Yeats: 18 & 29. Mention of his death: letter 32, and other mentions in letters 5, 13, & 15.

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Susan Mary Yeats (Lily) (1866 - 1949) Lily was the oldest daughter in the Yeats family. Only a year younger than William, the two siblings became very close. Although living together during their adult lives, Lily and Elizabeth did not get along very well. Constant feuding took place, with William inevitably taking Lily's side. Lily did the embroidery at the Cuala Industries but, unlike her sister, was happy to retire as soon as she could.

Lily was often ill, suffering from colds, depression and tuberculosis. In 1923, Lily was quite ill with tuberculosis and it was the Nobel Prize winnings that helped to pay for Lily's doctor's fees.

The only letter in this collection from Lily was written on April 24, 1916, the day of the Easter Rebellion. It is clear she did not yet know what had taken places only a few miles away. Elizabeth was on vacation at the time in England. Click here to read Letter 5, Lily Yeats to DeLury, April 24, 1916.

Lily's health is discussed by her sister in letter 35.

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Susan Mary Yeats (nee Pollexfen; mother of W.B.Y. Elizabeth C.Yeats, Lily(Susan Mary Yeats), and Jack Yeats) ( 1841 - 1900) married John Butler Yeats in 1862. She was to spend the rest of her life in distress watching her husband spend money without earning any and moving the family repeatedly from Ireland to England and back again. She was further distressed when her husband enrolled their children in art school seemingly to follow in his footsteps. She suffered a stroke at the young age of 46, and a second stroke at 47, making her completely dependent on others. For more see The Pollexfens.

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William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939) is largely responsible for the integration of art and politics in Ireland. William Butler Yeats, most famous for his poetry, was also a senator in the Irish parliament (1923-1928). He started the Abbey Theatre, or the National Theatre of Ireland in Dublin, directed and wrote plays for the Abbey and wrote multiple volumes of poetry and prose. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. Unlike his contemporaries, and even his father, he did not leave Ireland on any kind of permanent basis. He married Georgie Hyde-Lees in 1917 and had two children Anne(1919) and Michael(1921).

Letters from Yeats: 1, 2, 36, & 44-2; about Yeats:13, 26, 27, 31, 33-2, 46, & 47

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