A Broadside series

Issues from the first volume of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts's set of the A Broadside series.

A Broadside was a periodical, published monthly by Elizabeth Corbet (E.C.) Yeats at the Cuala Press in Dublin, Ireland, from June 1908 to May 1915. There are seven volumes of this set of A Broadside, each starting in June and ending in May of the year after. The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania holds two volumes in full, the first year from June 1908 to May 1909 and the second year from June 1909 to May 1910, and various issues from the ensuing volumes until May 1915, the last issue of the set. The series includes poems by James Stephens, Lady Gregory, Seamus O'Sullivan, William Butler (W.B.) Yeats, and others, and translations into English from George Borrow, Douglas Hyde, and others. Jack Butler (Jack B.) Yeats, the brother of E.C. and W.B. Yeats, illustrated the series. Each edition of A Broadside had 300 copies.

Background

Irish Revolutionary Period

Ireland’s history as fully part of the English, later British, Empire began in 1601 when Gaelic Ireland was defeated at the siege of Kinsale.

In January 1919, Dáil Éireann, a breakaway government, declared independence, claiming jurisdiction over the whole of Ireland, but the island was partitioned in May 1921, today, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland opted out of the Irish Free State when it was established under the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1922. The statutory role of the British monarchy in this territory did not end until 1948 when it was declared the Republic of Ireland.

Irish Literary Revival

From the late 19th to early 20th century, Dublin was the center of the Irish Literary Revival, in which W.B. Yeats was a prominent figure. The movement was aligned with strong political nationalism and a revival of interest in Ireland’s Gaelic literary heritage.

Yeats Family

The Yeats family, who moved between Dublin, Sligo, and London in the late nineteenth century, was extraordinarily artistic. Born to renowned Irish portraitist John Butler Yeats and Susan Pollexfen, the Yeats siblings, W.B. Yeats, E.C. Yeats, Lily Yeats, and Jack B. Yeats, undertook a variety of artistic pursuits: W.B. as a celebrated poet and playwright, E.C. and Lily as craftworkers and printers, and Jack as an esteemed painter. Three of the four siblings, W.B., E.C., and Jack, were involved with A Broadside: E.C. Yeats printed A Broadside, W.B. Yeats and Jack B. Yeats contributed poems, and Jack B. Yeats illustrated the set.

E.C. Yeats

Elizabeth Corbet “Lolly” Yeats, printed "E.C. Yeats" in A Broadside, was an Irish publisher and one of the foremost figures of the Irish Arts & Crafts movement, which hoped to stimulate the production of art in and Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th century. She attended the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art before she moved to London in 1886 and attended the Chiswick School of Art in London. She became an art teacher and published author. Before she returned to Dublin in 1900, Yeats trained at the Women's Printing Society in London under the suggestion of Emery Walker, whom she met through William Morris, who played a key role in reviving traditional British textile arts. In 1902, Yeats, her sister, embroiderer Susan Mary "Lily" Yeats, and her friend, Evelyn Gleeson, founded the Dun Emer Guild, an Irish Arts and Crafts textile studio. They established the Dun Emer Press, which Yeats managed. The press, located in Gleeson's house in Dundrum, was set up to train young women in bookbinding and printing. Yeats printed her brother's In the Seven Woods: being poems of the Irish heroic age.

Yeats grew to dislike Gleeson and ended their professional relationship in 1908, starting the Cuala Press with W.B. and Lily. There, she printed over 30 books of Irish poetry and prose, as well as A Broadside. Yeats was the first commercial printer in Ireland to work exclusively with hand presses.

Jack B. Yeats

Jack Butler (Jack B.) Yeats (August 29, 1871 – March 28, 1957) was an Irish artist. At 18, Yeats, who spent his childhood in Sligo with his maternal grandparents, returned to his family in London to attend art school. He began his artistic career as a black-and-white journalistic illustrator for various publications in London such as Punch and as a designer for Allen and Sons in Manchester in the 1890s. In 1897, he began to work in watercolor and hosted his first exhibition of watercolors in London in 1897. When Yeats permanently moved to Ireland in 1910, he began to work in oil paint. The National Gallery of Ireland describes Yeats's early paintings as a "realist approach of his graphic work" concentrating on scenes of rural and urban life. At the same time, he began to work with his sisters' Cuala Press, illustrating for A Broadside. Yeats also contributed poems to A Broadside under the names Wolfe Tone McGowan and Robert Emmet McGowan.

Throughout his childhood, Yeats traveled the Irish countryside with his grandfather, William Pollexfen, a well-known shipbuilder and merchant. They attended horse races and fairs. These became reoccurring motifs in Yeats's work. Yeats relied on memory and retrospection throughout his career, particularly on his memories of his childhood in Sligo, and stated that he rarely painted a painting "without a bit of Sligo in it." In A Broadside, Yeats used motifs that were common in his illustrative work: pirates (a love that can be attributed to his shipbuilder grandfather), circuses, traveling, horses, and country life events. Thomas MacGreevy, a long-time acquaintance of Yeats and a pallbearer at his funeral, believes Yeats's work was a "consummate expression of the spirit of his own nation" during Ireland's struggle for independence, although he is generally presented as an apolitical artist. For example, Bachelor's Walk, In Memory (1915) commemorated the lives of four civilians shot by British forces in July 1914. Other works such as The Funeral of Harry Boland (1922) and Communicating With Prisoners (1924) communicate the political tension of the time. Playwright Samuel Beckett called Yeats "very Republican."

W.B. Yeats

William Butler (W.B.) Yeats (June 13, 1865 – January 28, 1939) was an Irish poet, playwright, and politician known as one of the foremost English-language writers of the 20th century and the driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th century to early 20th century. Although the Yeats family was part of the Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority of Ireland, Yeats resolutely affirmed his Irish nationality and wanted to create a uniquely Irish literature based on Irish history and mythology through English. He earned the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation," and was described by the Nobel committee as "the interpreter of his country."

Yeats founded the Irish Literary Theatre with Lady Gregory.

Cuala Press

Dun Emer Press

The Cuala Press evolved from the Dun Emer Press, which E.C. Yeats managed from 1902 to 1908.

Material Analysis

Substate

The sheets are made out of paper. The material had a cotton-y, rag-like quality to it. You can see the ink through the paper. Swift Brook Paper Mills in Saggart, County Dublin, where the paper used to print the Easter Proclamation in 1916 was sourced, was W.B. Yeats’ mill of choice. The material they used was rags collected daily in Dublin.

Format

Each is a broadside folded once to produce four pages. That is to say, it is produced in a folio format. Each sheet is folded once and printed on both sides. Despite the title of the series, A Broadside, they do not appear to be true broadsides: printed on both sides, folded into booklets, and seemingly intended to be distributed rather than posted.

Binding and Structure

Each sheet is not bound to each other, existing in its own form; however, they are stored in a sturdy red slipcase. There is no design, illustration, or pattern on the slipcase, and, on first look, I would not believe it to be contemporary with the publication date due to its high, clean, and unworn quality. These documents, published at varying dates between 1908 and 1915, could not have been retained in their entirety together until the date of the last publication in this series. However, that is not to say this linen could not have been developed for this purpose beforehand.

Navigation

In every issue, the title of the series “A BROADSIDE” is printed at the top of the first page in the largest font. Everything else appears in the same size font. Above this, it states the year of the issue (to the left), and centered below it, it states the date. Below this and aligned to the left, it states who it was published by, what press, the name and location of the press, and the cost of a subscription. This is all capitalized. Then an image separates this information from the main text (which is in lowercase). In the booklet, there are two poems separated by an image. Most poems, though not all, have a centered, capitalized title, italicized, centered subheading beneath it, the main text, and then the name of the author. Below this and aligned to the right is the phrase “300 copies only.” A second image on the second page separates the first poem from the second with the same information if available (some poems don’t have titles, subheadings, or named authors). Most of the time, the third image, which is always on the third page, appears by itself without any supporting text on that page.

Illustrations

Each issue has three illustrations, one on each page (excluding the last page). Two are usually hand-colored. Most often the photo on the third page is uncolored, although this varies by issue. Many of the illustrations prominently feature traveling and/or the countryside. Each illustration is signed by Jack B. Yeats, E.C. Yeats’ brother, in the bottom left or bottom right corner. While not an often featured author, Yeats wrote a small number of poems within the series.