The Wild Swans at Coole

Ireland precedes England, and the two editions are not the same book. The Cuala Press issue (Churchtown, Dundrum, November 1917, 400 copies) is the true first. Macmillan's trade edition of March 1919 drops At the Hawk's Well and adds poems, including the first book appearances of 'In Memory of Major Robert Gregory' and 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death'; sources consulted disagree on how many poems were added (counts of eleven and seventeen both appear), so treat the number as unsettled. Both editions are collected: the Cuala for priority and for the play, the 1919 Macmillan for the first appearance of the Gregory elegies. Guard against a common and demonstrable dealer error: some catalogue descriptions list the Gregory poems in the 1917 Cuala. That is impossible. Robert Gregory was killed on 23 January 1918, after the Cuala book was published, and the elegies were written in 1918. A 1917 Cuala copy containing those poems does not exist; a description claiming one is misdescribed.