Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of William Butler Yeats — Context and Discussion

A Dual Structure: Linked and Unlinked Entries

The index's most immediate feature is its bifurcated layout. The first block lists 28 titles with clickable '##' markers, each leading to a linked table of contents. These include the eight-volume Collected Works, major poetry collections like The Wild Swans at Coole, and plays such as The King's Threshold. A second block, headed 'THE FOLLOWING EBOOKS HAVE NO LINKED TABLE OF CONTENTS,' lists 12 titles—among them Reveries Over Childhood and Youth and The Green Helmet and Other Poems—without such navigation aids.

This division is not merely technical. It reflects the uneven state of the source materials: some ebooks were produced with full structural markup, others as plain text. For a reader navigating Yeats's oeuvre, the distinction matters. A linked table of contents allows quick jumps between poems or acts; without it, one must scroll linearly. The index thus doubles as a map of the archive's own production history.

Yeats's Own Ordering: From 'The Hosting of the Sidhe' to 'The Hour-Glass'

The reproduced contents pages show Yeats's careful arrangement of his work. In The Wind Among the Reeds, poems follow a sequence: 'The Hosting of the Sidhe,' 'The Everlasting Voices,' 'The Moods,' then 'The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart.' The titles alone suggest a movement from the supernatural to the personal, from collective myth to individual longing.

Similarly, the table for Responsibilities and Other Poems opens with 'Introductory Rhymes' and closes with 'Closing Rhymes,' framing the collection as a deliberate arc. Within it, poems like 'September 1913' and 'To a Shade' sit alongside 'The Three Beggars' and 'The Magi,' mixing political commentary with folkloric and religious imagery. The index preserves these juxtapositions, allowing a reader to trace Yeats's thematic preoccupations across volumes without needing to open each ebook.

The Editor's Role: David Widger's Compilation

David Widger, credited as editor, has assembled this index from existing Project Gutenberg ebooks. His work is evident in the uniform formatting: each entry lists the title, and for multi-volume sets, the volume number. The index also includes a note that 'most recently updated' on February 25, 2021, indicating ongoing maintenance.

Widger's compilation does not impose a new order but reproduces Yeats's own tables of contents. The result is a reference tool that mirrors the structure of the Collected Works while also flagging gaps—those ebooks without linked tables of contents. For a scholar or casual reader, the index serves as a gateway: it lists all available titles in one place, but the quality of navigation varies by entry. The editor's role is thus one of curation and disclosure, not interpretation.

This index is best used as a starting point. Before reading a specific poem or play, check whether the ebook has a linked table of contents—if not, consider opening the volume directly and using the search function. The contents pages reproduced here offer a glimpse of Yeats's own arrangements, but they are not substitutes for the full texts. For a deeper understanding, consult the individual ebooks listed.