The King's Threshold: Manuscript Materials

by Yeats, William Butler

• ISBN13: 9780801441042
• ISBN10: 0801441048
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-03
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

"The King's Threshold was first performed in Dublin by the Irish National Theatre Society in 1903 and first published in New York in 1904. The Cornell Yeats edition of this play about a bard's hunger strike includes the preliminary notes and first prose drafts dictated by Yeats to his patron and collaborator, Lady Gregory, in March and April 1903. As well as providing an outline of the play, these preliminary notes identify contemporary persons on whom some of the characters were based. Other features of this edition of The King's Threshold include Yeats's first blank verse drafts, heavily revised and corrected typescripts and galley proofs, and notes for the changes made between 1904 and 1906. A major revision added a tragic ending to the version published in 1922, and this ending has remained in place ever since. Uniquely, this edition presents all four versions of the play, spanning thirty years of Yeats's efforts to perfect it."--BOOK JACKET.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Abbreviations	xiii
Census of Manuscripts	xv
Introduction	xxv
Transcription Principles and Procedures	lvii
The King's Threshold (1903--1904)
Manuscripts, with Transcriptions and Photographic Reproductions
Prose Scenarios, Drafts, and Notes
Complete Draft of the Prose Scenario (March--April 1903)	2	(17)
Revised Draft of the Opening Scene (April 1903)	19	(5)
Fragment of Revision for the Prose Scenario (April 1903)	24	(3)
Preliminary Notes for the Prose Scenario	27	(5)
Complete Fair Copy of the Revised Prose Scenario (April 1903)	32	(14)
Typescript Fragments with Holograph Revisions	46	(9)
Holograph Fragments of the Revised Blank Verse Draft	55	(34)
First Complete Holograph Blank Verse Draft	89	(159)
Typescript Fair Copy Fragment with Holograph Revisions	248	(5)
Holograph Fragment of Notes for Revised Blank Verse Draft	253	(2)
Holograph Fragments of Revised Blank Verse Draft	255	(60)
Fragment of the Prologue	315	(1)
First Complete Typescript (August 1903)	316	(53)
Holograph Fragment of Revised Blank Verse Draft	369	(1)
Complete Typescript with Postproduction Revisions (October 1903)	370	(45)
The King's Threshold (1905--1906)
Manuscripts, with Transcriptions and Photographic Reproductions
Holograph Fragments
Revisions for the King's Speech	415	(4)
Revisions for the Cripples' Parts	419	(2)
Revisions for the Cripples' Parts	421	(2)
Holograph Fragment of Revision for the Parts of Seanchan and the Mayor	423	(4)
Revised Galley Proofs for Poems 1899--1905 (December 1905--January 1906)	427	(78)
The King's Threshold (1920--1922)
Manuscripts, with Transcriptions and Photographic Reproductions
Holograph Emendations for Plays in Prose and Verse (1922) and the New Ending (December 1920)	505	(20)
Holograph of the Final Page of the New Ending (December 1920)	525	(2)
Holograph Revisions for the New Ending	527	(1)
Typescript of Alterations in Additions to the New Ending	528	(2)
Pasted-up Printed Copy of 1911 Text with Holograph and Typescript Revisions for Plays in Prose and Verse (1922)	530	(37)
The King's Threshold (1931--1934)
Manuscripts, with Transcriptions and Photographic Reproductions
Holograph Fragment of Revision in the Cripples' Dialogue for The Collected Plays (1934)	567	(1)
Revised ``first page proofs'' for the Macmillan Edition de Luxe (Coole Edition), Volume III (November 1931)	568	(44)
Appendixes
I. Stage Design for First Production, Bound with Harvard(1) Typescript	612	(1)
II. W. B. Yeats's Opening Night Speech Reported in The Freeman's Journal (Dublin, October 9, 1903)	613	(1)
III. Photograph of a Scene from the First Dublin Production, from The New York Herald (1904)	614	(1)
IV. Parody of The King's Threshold from The Leader (Dublin, September 23, 1911)	615	(2)
V. Stage Designs for The Abbey Theatre (c. 1910)	617