Small octavo. (42)pp. Printed in black with colophon in red by the Cuala in its customary Caslon type is A.E.'s (a.k.a. George Russell's) "Essay on the Character of Irish Literature," which is a fitting and laudable preface to O'Connor's translation of poems out of Irish and into English. Printing Irish literature in the Irish language was quite the challenge for anyone, but especially Irish printers who were still recovering from the decimation of the trade on the island in the 19th century. Cuala only published one book in the language, a private edition of three copies of poetry. Among the many ways to revive and evangelize the Irish national spirit was to speculate about what exactly made Irish literature Irish, as A.E. does here, and to translate the historical mythology and poetry into a modern English form. Bound in quarter buckram with blue paper over boards. Quite a clean copy, with a lone mote of foxing and only glancing bumps to corners. With the original plain paper wrapper, which is toned and chipped. Near fine overall. (Miller 48)