Irish Fairy and Folk Tales (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) »

William Butler Yeats won the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature and remains one of Ireland’s most influential poets and playwrights. Born in 1865 in Sandymount, County, he spent his childhood in the rugged countryside of County Sligo, and in the cities of Dublin and London. Together with the philanthropist and folklore collector Lady Augusta Gregory, Yeats founded the first Irish national theater in 1899 and ignited the Irish Literary Revival. Yeats was elected to the first Irish Senate in 1922 and was awarded the Gothenburg Prize for Poetry in 1937. He died in Roquebrune, France, in 1939.

Tales of magic and mischief wrought by fairies, leprechauns, ghosts, and giants enchant and entertain in William Butler Yeats’ Irish Fairy and Folktales. Comprised of two previously published books, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) and Irish Fairy Tales (1892), this compilation remains an influential and beloved anthology of Irish folklore. Many of its tales were recorded by the earliest collectors of Irish folklore and have been told around the hearth for hundreds of years. The cast includes familiar characters such as the Fairy Shoemaker, the Banshee, and Finn Mac Cool. Ghost stories, outlandish adventures, poems, and traditional fairy tales carefully selected and edited by Yeats both amuse and educate, providing a glimpse into the world of Irish folk life and belief at the dawn of modern Irish civilization.