“Something that I read in a book”: W. B. Yeats’s Annotations at the National Library of Ireland

“Something that I read in a book” describes W. B. Yeats’s annotated books archived at the National Library of Ireland. This meticulously researched, comprehensive, two-volume resource surveys a major poet’s library, revealing details of his reading and how his reading informed his writings. The resource will enable scholars and students in Yeats studies to explore the materials in his library, which, together with most of his unpublished papers and manuscripts, forms part of the writer’s archive available for consultation at the National Library of Ireland. Chapman goes far beyond tracking isolated references and allusions between the writer’s library and his work: “Something that I read in a book” tells the story of how the poet built his oeuvre, enriched by the resources of his library.

Generally, this first volume describes the evidence that he and his wife, George, left in books by other authors, including extensive indications of close reading and thinking on a surprising range of subjects. It is followed by volume II, Yeats Writings, which describes copies of books he wrote or edited solely in his name and subsequently revised or marked for other purposes, on occasion aided by his wife and others.