Book excerpt: This collection of letters between Maud Gonne (Irish activist, actress, and long-time love of W. B. Yeats) and John Quinn (Irish-American lawyer, art collector, and patron) deals with art, literature, Irish politics, and the horrific conflicts of the early twentieth century. Their letters are filled with details about the Irish fight for freedom, and how it affected Yeats, Pound, Joyce, and other friends; about Gonne's never-ending battle to establish a school feeding program for the starving children of Ireland; and about the alarming changes in the political and social world of their time.