What is the name of this novel involving WB Yeats?

October 20, 2008 2:48 PM

What's the novel I read that featured an old flame of WB Yeats?

The main character was a young girl, who knew an elderly woman who'd been involved with Yeats. I distinctly recall the woman referring to him as "my Willie" and refusing to be interviewed about him, and I think that in her will she left the girl something that Yeats had given her.

posted by moonlet to media & arts (9 comments total)

I don't know, but it seems likely that the former flame was a fictionalized Maud Gonne, which may (or may not) help you in your sleuthing.
posted by dersins at 3:49 PM on October 20, 2008

A Dance in Time by Orna Ross?

Incidentally: here is a comic from Kate Beaton about Yeats and Maud Gonne
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:36 PM on October 20, 2008

That is an excellent comic.

It's not the book, unfortunately; this one isn't in print in the US yet, and I must've read this in the mid-'90s.
posted by moonlet at 9:11 PM on October 20, 2008

Was it a kids'/young adult book?
do you remember anything else about it?
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:18 PM on October 20, 2008

Also, where would it have been in print in the mid-90s?
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:20 PM on October 20, 2008

Ooof. I should know better than to post a question without covering all the bases. I believe it was a YA book, and I read it in the US in the mid-'90s. I'm pretty sure it was set in Ireland, and I assume it was in the '40s or '50s, given the dates Yeats was alive.
posted by moonlet at 10:02 PM on October 20, 2008

I haven't been able to find anything, but jessamyn has these two links in her profile for "what's that book" questions; might be good next steps:
NYPL suggestion on how to identify a book
Stump the bookseller
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:41 PM on October 21, 2008

Thank you for looking, and for the links; I'll keep digging!
posted by moonlet at 9:04 AM on October 22, 2008

Thanks to What Was That Book, I figured out that it was The Private Worlds of Julia Redfern. It was set in the Bay Area in the 1920s, which I think says a lot about my memory.
posted by moonlet at 1:43 PM on November 7, 2008 [1 favorite]