Mosada

W. B. Yeats

Mosada

Dublin

Sealy, Bryers, and Walker

1886

Inscribed on the verso of the front wrapper: “Mrs Zena Vowell, from her friend, the Author.”

W. B. Yeats published his first stand-alone work at age 21. A play about a Moorish girl who kills herself, Mosada is most noteworthy for its place in Yeats’s bibliography. The frontispiece is a portrait of Yeats by his artist father, J. B. Yeats. A hundred copies were printed, 21 are known to survive, nine of which are signed by Yeats. The recipient has only recently been determined to have been one of the original subscribers of the publication. Years later, after her death, she was said to have appeared at a seance held by a member of Yeats’s circle.