The Tain. Translated by Thomas Kinsella from the Irish. Brush Drawings by Louis Le Brocquy. Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1985. Pp vi, 295. Large 8vo. A fine bright copy in black cloth boards and pictorial dust jacket.

After Liam Miller died, his now legendary Dolmen Press ceased publication. Miller’s presswork had come to international prominence eighteen years earlier with the publication of Thomas Kinsella’s The Tain as the ninth Dolmen Edition in September, 1969.

Of course, Kinsella’s prominence as a poet and his finely honed skills as a translator made the book a contemporary classic. However, it was the Irish artist Louis le Brocquy’s suites of ink brush drawings for The Tain that fixed the aesthetic standards of the Dolmen Press in high, inter-national repute.

Seven editions of The Tain appeared between 1970 & 1982, however they contained only a selection of the illustrations which appeared in the first edition of 1969. This 1985 edition contains all the illustrations which appeared in the original.