Prodigal Father Revisited: Artists and Writers in the World of John Butler Yeats (Locust Hill Literary Studies, No. 34)

xxviii, 506 pp. ""Written by a group of international scholars including Lucy McDiarmid, Sam McCready, Phillip L. Marcus, and Hilary Pyle, the book opens with a recollection by J.B. Yeats's friend, American critic Van Wyck Brooks, and is followed by a sampler of significant, largely unpublished excerpts from the letters of JBY to his family and friends, presented by his biographer, William M. Murphy." "Never have readers found such treasures in one book: Douglas Saum's original musical score for W. B. Yeats's "Beautiful Lofty Things"; Nancy Cardozo's reminiscences of her friend, Van Wyck Brooks; and Peter Miles's study of Jack Yeats, the novelist. Several essays on J. B. Yeats's poet-friend, Jeanne Robert Foster, examine his poetical criticism. Sections on "Art and Artists" and "Writers and Dreamers, now and then" present new details about JBY's importance in the development of American critical thought and his friendship with Ashcan School artist John Sloan." Prodigal Father Revisited concludes with Jeanne Foster's memorial poem and art patron John Quinn's previously unpublished letter to W.B. Yeats, written in May 1922 - three months after the death of John Butler Yeats."