Autograph letter signed from Elizabeth Yeats to “Mr. Gates”

Autograph letter signed from Elizabeth Yeats to “Mr. Gates”

August 2, 1939

Eight leaves on Cuala Industries Ltd. stationery

In this extraordinary letter, Elizabeth Yeats recounts the history of the press, starting with its formation in 1904 as the Dun Emer Press and describing its trials and successes and ongoing financial challenges over the subsequent thirty-five years. Her brother W. B. Yeats had died six months earlier, at the end of January 1939. Elizabeth was to die just four months after the date of this letter, in January 1940. The Cuala Press continued on after the death of Elizabeth Yeats, under the supervision of W. B. Yeats’s widow, George.