Twenty One Poems by Lionel Johnson. Selected by William Butler Yeats. Dublin: Dun Emer Press, 1904. Publisher’s quarter linen paper boards, title label to spine. In glassine dust jacket. A fine copy.

One of 220 Copies Printed.

Lionel Pigot Johnson was an English poet, essayist, and critic. He first met Yeats (and Oscar Wilde) in 1891 when he joined The Rhymers’ Club, co-founded by Yeats and Ernest Rhys. This was principally a group of London poets who met and read poetry — usually in the Cheshire Cheese pub in Fleet Street. The group published two collections of poems in 1892 and 1894, with Johnson contributing to both.

Influenced by Yeats, Johnson took a lively interest in the Irish Literary Society, and his collection ‘Ireland and Other Poems’ (1897) shows intense love for Ireland. Johnson converted to Roman Catholicism in 1891, about the same time that he introduced his other famous cousin Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosey) to his friend Oscar Wilde. It’s said Johnson lent his copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray to his young cousin, who begged to be taken to meet the author.