Book given by WB Yeats to lover sold for $12,000

A book signed by WB Yeats and given by him as a gift to his “first love” has been sold at auction in New York for $12,000.

The 1893 collection of poems by William Blake was given by the Irish poet to arts patron Olivia Shakespear [correct]in 1896, two years after the pair first met. The book contains an inscription in ink by Yeats that reads: “Mrs Shakespear/from WB Yeats/February 1896”. Historians say Yeats, who was 30 at the time, had a short-lived affair with Mrs Shakspear that began that year. 

She later married famous American poet Ezra Pound, and the book was in the collection of their grandson Omar Shakespear Pound until his death last year. Yeats and Olivia Shakespear remained close friends throughout their lives, and Yeats would later call her his “first lover and long-time friend”.

The book contains penciled notes on the margins of three pages, probably made by Olivia Shakespear. One quotes Oscar Wilde, another quotes Yeats reading “a brief forgiveness between opposites”. The auction took place at Doyle Auction House on New York’s Upper East Side.

Other items of interest to sell at last night’s auction included a limited edition of an illustrated edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses from 1935 with engravings by French artist Henri Matisse which fetched $2,500. A copy of Oscar Wilde’s L’Anniversaire de l’Infante (1928) sold for $1,600.