In the summer of 1909, the Executors sent me a large bundle of papers,
cuttings from newspapers and magazines, manuscript and typewritten prose
and verse, put together and annotated by Synge himself before his last
illness. I spent a portion of each day for weeks reading and re-reading
early dramatic writing, poems, essays, and so forth, and with the
exception of ninety pages which have been published without my consent,
made consulting Lady Gregory from time to time the Selection of his work
published by Messrs. Maunsel. It is because of these ninety pages, that
neither Lady Gregory's name nor mine appears in any of the books, and
that the Introduction which I now publish, was withdrawn by me after it
had been advertised by the publishers. Before the publication of the
books the Executors discovered a scrap of paper with a sentence by J.M.
Synge saying that Selections might be taken from his Essays on the
Congested Districts. I do not know if this was written before his letter
to me, which made no mention of them, or contained his final directions.
The matter is unimportant, for the publishers decided to ignore my offer
to select as well as my original decision to reject, and for this act of
theirs they have given me no reasons except reasons of convenience, which
neither Lady Gregory nor I could accept.

W.B. Yeats.


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J.M. SYNGE AND THE IRELAND OF HIS TIME