Compiled by Neil Mann for “The System of W. B. Yeats’s A Vision” web-site [link] - and based on John Kelly, A W. B. Yeats Chronology (London: Palgrave 2003), with additional materials from www.ricorso.net

(June 13, at 10.40 pm) William Butler Yeats born in Dublin, the eldest child of John Butler Yeats, a lawyer turned painter, and Susan Yeats, née Pollexfen.

(July) The Yeats family moves to London.

Family holidays in Sligo.

(July) Susan Yeats takes WBY and her other children to her parents’ house in Sligo, in the west of Ireland, for two years.

(October) The family returns to London.

(Summer) The family returns to Ireland, living in Howth, near Dublin

(May) WBY enrolls at Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin

(April) First poems published in the Dublin University Review
(June) Founds Dublin Hermetic Society with AE (George Russell) and Charles Johnston.
WBY meets Douglas Hyde, Katharine Tynan and John O’Leary.

WBY attends his first séance; arrival of Mohini Chatterjee to help found Dublin Theosophical Lodge

(April) WBY leaves Metropolitan School of Art
(October) Mosada, A Dramatic Poem, is published privately

(April) Returns with family to London
(May) Visits Madame Blavatsky, who has just arrived in London.
WBY first meets MacGregor Mathers (Samuel Liddle Mathers).

WBY meets George Bernard Shaw at William Morris’s house, and Lady Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s mother. (September) Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (ed.) published.
(November) Joins the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society
(December) Christmas Day with Oscar and Constance Wilde in London.

(January) The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems is published. WBY meets Maud Gonne.

(January) Maud Gonne has a son, George, by her lover Lucien Millevoye (WBY unaware). WBY founds Rhymers’ Club with Ernest Rhys.
(March) WBY initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
(October) WBY asked to resign from Esoteric Section of Theosophical Society.

(March) Representative Irish Tales (ed.) is published.
(August) WBY proposes to Maud Gonne for the first time but is refused. MG’s son dies.
(September) WBY and John O’Leary organise meeting of Young Ireland League to unite various literary societies.
(October) Death of Charles Stewart Parnell.
(November) John Sherman and Dhoya (short fiction) is published.

(May) Irish Fairy Tales (ed.) is published; Irish Literary Society founded in Dublin, with its inaugural meeting in August.
(August) The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics is published.
(October 16 at 8.25 am) Bertha Georgie Hyde Lees born at Fleet near Aldershot. Her birth-certificate gives 17 October, but she always celebrated her birthday on 16th.

(January) WBY enters the Second Order of the Golden Dawn.
(January/February) The Works of William Blake (ed. with Edwin Ellis) is published.
(November) The Poems of William Blake (ed.) is published.
(December) The Celtic Twilight (stories) is published

(March) The Land of Heart’s Desire is produced in London.
(August) Maud Gonne’s daughter by Lucien Millevoye, Iseult, is born.

(March) A Book of Irish Verse (ed.) is published.
(August) Poems is published

(February) WBY takes rooms at Woburn Buildings in Bloomsbury, London. He begins an affair with Olivia Shakespear.
(August) WBY meets Lady Gregory at Tillyra Castle, Galway, home of Edward Martyn, a cousin of George Moore.
(December) WBY meets J. M. Synge in Paris.

(April and June) The Secret Rose and The Adoration of the Magi (stories) published.
(July) WBY stays at Coole Park, Galway, Lady Gregory’s house. He discusses the foundation of a Celtic Theatre with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and George Moore.

Working on ‘Celtic mysticism’, with Maud Gonne and members of the Golden Dawn. (December) WBY and Maud Gonne contract a mystical marriage.

(February) WBY visits Maud Gonne in Paris and proposes marriage again, and is refused again.
(April) The Wind Among the Reeds (poems) is published.
(May) The Countess Cathleen is performed as the first production of the Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin

(January) The death of WBY’s mother, Susan.
(March) Protest riots in Dublin at Queen Victoria’s Jubilee visit to Ireland, Maud Gonne involved.
(April) Mathers sends Aleister Crowley to seize Golden Dawn headquarters but WBY and others manage to repel him.

(October) Diarmuid and Grania, originally planned with George Moore, is produced in Dublin.

(August) WBY meets John Quinn and, at some point in summer, James Joyce.
(April) Cathleen Ni Houlihan is produced, with Maud Gonne in the title role.
(October/November) The Pot of Broth is produced by Irish National Theatre Society.
(November) Where There is Nothing published

(February) Maud Gonne marries John MacBride, who had fought against the British in the Boer War
(May) Ideas of Good and Evil (essays) published.
(August) In the Seven Woods (poems) published.
(November) Leaves for first lecture tour in USA, returning following March.

(June) Where There is Nothing produced by Stage Society.
(December) The Abbey Theatre opens with On Baile’s Strand.

Theatre business dominates.

Theatre business and lecturing.

(January) J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World opens at the Abbey to riots.
(March) Death of John O’Leary.
WBY’s father settles permanently in New York

(January) Fays resign from the Abbey company
(Spring) Affair with Mabel Dickinson
(September-December) WBY’s Collected Works published by Shakespeare’s Head in 8 volumes
(November) Mrs Patrick Campbell in Deirdre in Dublin and London

(March) J. M . Synge dies.

(August) WBY granted Civil List pension of £150 per annum
(Septmeber) George Pollexfen dies.
(December) The Green Helmet and Other Poems published.

(April) Meets Ezra Pound in Paris
(September) WBY accompanies Abbey Players on tour of USA
(May) Meets his future wife, Georgie Hyde Lees, for the first time

(November) The Cutting of an Agate (essays) published

(October) Poems written in Discouragement published
(November) Rents Stone Cottage in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, with Ezra Pound as secretary

(January) Leaves for USA lecture tour
(May) Responsibilities (poems) published
(July) Home Rule Bill for Ireland passed but suspended because of European situation
(July) Georgie Hyde Lees joins the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, with WBY as sponsor
(August) First World War begins

(January-February) At Stone Cottage with Ezra and Dorothy Pound (May) Hugh Lane, Lady Gregory’s nephew, drowned when S.S. Lusitania is torpedoed in the Atlantic
(December) Refuses a British knighthood

(March) Reveries over Childhood and Youth (autobiography) published
(April) At the Hawk’s Well, the first of his Noh dramas, produced in London
(April) Easter Rising in Dublin
(May) Execution of leaders of Easter Rising, among them John MacBride
(July-August) WBY visits Maud Gonne in Normandy, where she again refuses his proposal of marriage; he also discusses marriage with her daughter, Iseult.

(March) WBY buys Thoor Ballylee, a Norman tower near Coole Park in Galway
(August) Proposes marriage to Maud Gonne’s daughter Iseult and is refused
(September) Proposes marriage to Georgie Hyde Lees and is accepted
(October) Marries Georgie Hyde Lees. Honeymoon in Ashdown Forest. Georgie, now known as George Yeats, begins automatic writing
(November) WBY and GY move to Stone Cottage. Automatic writing almost daily; first drafts of Michael Robartes dialogues
(November) The Wild Swans at Coole is published
(December) In London, but leave for Sussex because of zeppelin raids; Yeats meets Sir Edward Denison Ross to discuss Arabic for Michael Robartes dialogues

(January) WBY and GY move to Oxford
(January) Per Amica Silentia Lunae (essay) published
(January) Robert Gregory, Lady Gregory’s son, killed in action in Italy
(May-September) Yeatses in Galway to supervise restoration of Thoor Ballylee, ready in September; automatic writing continues throughout
(September) Yeatses rent Dublin house from Maud Gonne
(November) End of First World War
(December) In the General Election, Sinn Fein wins a majority of seats in Ireland but does not sit at Westminster and sets up Dáil Éireann (Assembly of Ireland), at the first meeting of which, in January 1919, Ireland’s independence is declared

(January) Two Plays for Dancers
(February) Daughter, Anne, born in Dublin
(June) Gives up London rooms at Woburn Buildings
(Summer) At Thoor Ballylee; automatic writing continues
(October) Civil unrest in Ireland

(January) Yeatses leave for USA for lecture tour; automatic writing continues
(August) GY has miscarriage
(Autumn) Guerrilla war in Ireland intensifies

(February) Michael Robartes and the Dancer (poems) published
(July) Truce in Ireland
(Spring-Summer) Moves within Oxfordshire; almost no automatic writing, but ‘sleeps’ continue
(August) Son, Michael, born at Thame in Oxfordshire
(October) Four Plays for Dancers published
(December) Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in London, for the establishment of the Irish Free State
(December) Four Years (autobiography) published

(January) Dáil Éireann ratifies Treaty, leading to civil war in Ireland
(February) J. B. Yeats dies in New York
(March-September) At Thoor Ballylee, while civil war rages; sleeps coming to an end, working on A Vision
(July) WBY receives Honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin
(October) The Trembling of the Veil (autobiography) published
(December) WBY appointed to the Irish Senead (senate)

(April) End of the Civil War
(November) WBY awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, which he receives in Stockholm in December
(November) Plays and Controversies (plays and essays) published

Working on A Vision
(May) Essays published

Working on A Vision
(January-February) In Italy, where he finishes ‘The Gates of Pluto’ and ‘Dedication’ for A Vision

(January) First version of A Vision published by T. Werner Laurie (see Reviews)
(February) Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars opens at Abbey Theatre to riots
(November) Autobiographies (collection of earlier autobiographical writings) published

(November) Yeatses winter in Algeciras, Seville and Cannes. WBY ill with congestion of the lungs, and in ill health for much of the rest of his life

(February) The Tower published
(June) O’Casey’s The Silver Tassie rejected by Abbey Theatre
(September) WBY resigns from Senead
(October) The Winding Stair (poems) published
(Winter) In Rapallo, revising A Vision, drafts first version of ‘Seven Propositions’

(June) A Packet for Ezra Pound published
(Summer) Last visit to Thoor Ballylee
(Winter) In Rapallo, revising A Vision

(Autumn) At Coole

Finishes revising A Vision, though the revised version is not published for six years
(June) Delivers bulk of MS material for proposed ‘Edition de Luxe’ to Macmillans
(September) Makes first radio broadcast for BBC in Belfast
(Autumn-Winter) Lady Gregory in decline, WBY often at Coole

(Winter-Spring) At Coole
(April) Broadcasts for BBC from London.
(May) Lady Gregory dies
(July) Moves to last Irish home, Riversdale at Rathfarnham, near Dublin
(October) Starts on last US lecture tour
(November) Words for Music Perhaps (poems) published

(July-August) WBY involved with fascist Blueshirts in Dublin
(September) The Winding Stair and Other Poems, bringing together the poems from The Winding Stair (1929) and Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932), is published
(November) Collected Poems published

(April) Undergoes Steinach operation (vasectomy) for rejuvenation
(November) Wheels and Butterflies (essays and plays) published
(November) Collected Plays published

(July) AE (George Russell) dies
(November) A Full Moon in March (plays) published
(December) Dramatis Personae (autobiography) published
(December) In Majorca, working on translation of Upanishads with Sri Purohit Swami

(January-April) WBY collapses, GY summoned to Majorca; WBY makes slow recovery
(November) WBY’s Oxford Book of Modern Verse causes controversy

(April) The Ten Principal Upanishads published
(October) Revised version of A Vision published by Macmillan (see Reviews)
(December) Essays 1931-1936 published
(December) Bunreacht na hÉireann (Constitution of Ireland) adopted, replacing Irish Free State with Éire.

(May) New Poems published
(August) First production of Purgatory at the Abbey Theatre. WBY’s last public appearance
(October) Olivia Shakespear dies
(November) Yeatses leave for South of France

(January) WBY dies at Cap Martin, buried at Roquebrune.
(July) Last Poems and Two Plays published
(September) On the Boiler published
(September) Second World War begins

George Yeats dies