The History of My Family

The author clarifies controversial events in William Butler Yeats's life, such as sudden heart troubles and depression from June 1925, his notorious Divorce Bill speech, the riots over O'Casey's production of 'The Plough and the Stars' and Yeats's obsession with Purgatory. His wife George was his amanuensis; this essay explains her motivation for altering details in his works and hoarding his papers after his death. She insisted that Yeats's alter egos and 'masks' were psychic creations of a genius; this essay shows they were real disguises that George had to suppress in order to hide her own role in the murder of Yeats's extra-marital lover.