John Butler Yeats, an impecunious painter, was considered by many to be one of the best conversationalists of his time. Unlike his son the poet, however, he had great difficulty completing or even starting work, leaving much undone or unfinished. Since he spent the last fifteen years of his life away from his family in New York, living in a boarding house, he wrote many letters home. His correspondence, filled with originality, wisdom, good humor, optimism and grace, shows him to be one of the great free spirits of the age.
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The Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature: Colm Toibin, John Butler Yeats in Exile: Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?
November
13
2017