Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878-1957), surgeon and writer, was born in Dublin and graduated in medicine in 1907. A close friend of James Joyce, he was the inspiration for Joyce's character Buck Mulligan in Ulysses. While building up a practice as a nose and throat surgeon, Gogarty also built a reputation for irreverent wit. His first book of poetry, An Offering of Swans, came out in 1924. Disliking conservative Ireland in the 1930s, he moved to America in 1939 and died in New York. The Cuala Press was founded by W. B. Yeats and his sister Elizabeth in 1908. While overshadowed by their famous brother, Elizabeth and another sister, Lily, made a significant contribution to Ireland's cultural life through their involvement with Cuala. Elizabeth ran the printing department while Lily ran the embroidery department. William himself was of course editor. Cuala was an Arts & Crafts establishment that focussed on publishing new works by Irish authors and therefore played an important part in the "Celtic Revival." Frederick Robert Higgins (1896-1941) was an Irish poet and theatre director who was a student of Yeats. His circle of friends included leading Irish literary figures of his time; besides Gogarty and Yeats, he knew Padraic O Conaire, George William Russell, Lennox Robinson, and Frank O'Connor. Artist Victor Brown, to whom this book is presented, illustrated Higgins' works.
