So wrote Augusta Gregory to W.B. Yeats; she was referring to the riots at the Abbey Theatre over The Playboy of the Western World, and she knew which side she was on. In this remarkable biographical essay, Colm Toibin examines the contradictions that defined the position of this essential figure in Irish cultural history. The wife of a landlord and MP who had been personally responsible for introducing measures that compounded the misery of the Irish peasantry during the Great Famine, Lady Gregory devoted much of her ...
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So wrote Augusta Gregory to W.B. Yeats; she was referring to the riots at the Abbey Theatre over The Playboy of the Western World, and she knew which side she was on. In this remarkable biographical essay, Colm Toibin examines the contradictions that defined the position of this essential figure in Irish cultural history. The wife of a landlord and MP who had been personally responsible for introducing measures that compounded the misery of the Irish peasantry during the Great Famine, Lady Gregory devoted much of her creative energy to idealizing that same peasantry - while never abandoning the aristocratic hauteur, the social connections or the great house which her birth and marriage had bequeathed to her. Early in her writing life, her politics were staunchly unionist as regarded Ireland - yet she campaigned for the freedom of Egypt from colonial rule. Later she wrote plays celebrating rebellion, but trembled in her bed when the Irish revolution threatened her property and her way of life. Lady Gregory's capacity to occupy mutually contradictory positions was essential to her heroic work as a founder and director of the Abbey Theatre - nurturing Synge and O'Casey, battling rioters and censors - and to her central role in the career of W.B. Yeats. Toibin also reveals a side of Lady Gregory that is at odds with the received image of a chilly dowager: her capacity to love and be loved by men. Early in her marriage to Sir William Gregory, she had an affair with the poet and anti-imperialist Wilfred Scawen Blunt, and wrote a series of torrid love sonnets that Blunt published under his own name. Much later in life, as she neared her sixtieth birthday, she fell in love with the great patron of the arts John Quinn, who was eighteen years her junior. Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a sharp, concentrated, witty, and much-needed reassessment of a major cultural figure who has been oddly taken for granted and often badly misunderstood.
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
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New. 2003. Main Market. Paperback. This sharp and stylish biography redefines the woman George Bernard Shaw once described as 'the greatest living Irishwoman'--Augusta Gregory. Num Pages: 128 pages, Illustrations. BIC Classification: 1DBR; 2AB; BGH; DSBH; DSG. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 132 x 8. Weight in Grams: 116......We ship daily from our Bookshop.
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Fine. B-format paperback. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
