Book excerpt: Described by Seamus Heaney as `one of the great publishing events of the decade', The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats is redefining the territory of modern literary history. Covering a formative period in Yeats's political career, and the beginning of his theatrical involvement, Volume II (1896-1900) is indispensable to anyone interested in modern poetry, Irish drama, and cultural history. Letter by letter Yeat's private concerns, artistic quarrels and exhausting political life are revealed. Rich and readable notes provide a narrative of these years, explaining allusions, and setting the correspondence in its cultural and political contexts, as well as relating it to the emergence of Yeats's canon.