The Bell-Branch.

Dublin: Maunsel & Co., Ltd,, 1908. An inscribed copy of a scarce text of the Irish Literary Revival First edition, first printing, a rare presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "With happiest remembrances of the past and warmest wishes for the future. James H. Cousins, Dublin: 30 Nov '08". A significant figure in the Irish Literary Revival, Cousins "was a catalyst in the early days of the theatre movement... memorable as an engaging and enthusiastic eccentric" (Hogan, p. 179). It was this work that James Joyce was likely referencing in "Gas from a Burner" (1912) when he wrote, "I printed the table-book of Cousins, Though (asking your pardon) as for the verse, 'Twould give you a heartburn on your arse". Yeats was similarly disparaging of Cousins's plays, and the two had a brief falling out, though later Yeats would attempt to make amends. Cousins was a prolific writer and much admired teacher, as well as an editor of a suffragette journal; several of the poems in this volume are on the subject of women's suffrage, including a vitriolic address "To Certain Legislators Who Speak Scornfully of Women's Methods of Expressing Their Demand for Political Freedom". His bibliographer Alan Denson contextualizes Cousins thus: "The unflattering (and offensive) gibes levelled at him in the W. B. Yeats and James Joyce canon deserve to be weighed against one important fact. Neither Yeats nor Joyce appears to have had any knowledge of Cousins' books written after 1915. Whilst they lived out their lives in service to their own self-centered ideals, James Cousins devoted his best energies and his subtlest intellectual powers to the education of the young and the welfare of the poor and oppressed" (quoted in Hogan, p. 176). Small octavo. Original pale blue cloth-backed blue paper boards, front lettered in dark blue, blue endpapers, fore and lower edges untrimmed, some uncut. With dust jacket. Spine gently sunned, tiny mark to top edge, a few spots of foxing to text, trivial marks to gutter of title page. A near-fine copy, remarkably bright and square, in near-fine jacket, lightly toned, tiny chips to spine ends and corners, single mark to front panel, tiny hole to fold of front flap and a few spots of rubbing to extremities, very sharp and fresh. Robert Hogan, The Macmillan Dictionary of Irish Literature, 1979.