YEATS CHRONOLOGY  1865-1939 compiled by Sam McCready author of A WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ENCYCLOPEDIA, and Director of the Drama Workshop at the Yeats International Summer School, Sligo, Ireland, 1998-2000

1867 (July) Yeats family moves to 23 Fitzroy Road, London 

1872 (July) Susan Yeats returns with W.B. and her other children to Sligo. (Stays with her parents, William and Elizabeth Pollexfen, at Merville)

1874 (Oct.) Yeats family returns to London. Settles at Edith Villas

1877 (Spring) W.B. enrolls at Godolphin School, Hammersmith, London

1881 (Summer) Yeats family settles at Balscadden Cottage, Howth, near Dublin

1881 (Fall) W.B. attends Erasmus Smith High School, Dublin

1883 (Dec.) Leaves Erasmus Smith High School

1884 (May) WBY enrolls at Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin

1885 (Apr.) First poems published in the Dublin University Review

1885 (June) Founds Dublin Hermetic Society with AE and Charles Johnston. Meets Katharine Tynan

1885 (Nov.) Attends early meeting of Contemporary Club, Dublin

1886 (Apr.) Leaves Metropolitan School of Art

1886 (Oct.) Mosada published privately

1887 (Apr.) Returns with family to London

1887 (May) Visits Madame Blavatsky

1888 (Mar.) Yeats family moves to Bedford Park

1888 (Nov.) Joins the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society

1889 (Jan.) The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems published. Meets Maud Gonne

1890 (Jan.) Founds Rhymers' Club with Ernest Rhys.

1890 (March) Initiated into the Order of the Golden Dawn

1891 (Aug.) Proposes to Maud Gonne but is refused

1891 (Oct.) Death of Charles Stewart Parnell, the uncrowned king of Ireland

1892 (May) Irish Literary Society founded in London

1892 (Aug.) The Countess Kathleen (sic) published

1893 (Dec.) The Celtic Twilight published

1894 (Mar.) The Land of Heart's Desire produced by Florence Farr in London

1894 (Nov.) Stays with aristocratic Gore-Booth family at Lissadell in Sligo

1895 (Aug.) Poems published

1896 (Feb.) Takes rooms at Woburn Buildings. Begins affair with Olivia Shakespear

1896 (Aug.) Meets Lady Gregory at Tulira Castle, Galway

1897 (July) Stays at Coole Park. Discusses the foundation of the Irish Literary Theatre with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and George Moore

1898 (Dec.) WBY and Maud Gonne embark on a mystical marriage

1899 (Feb.) Visits her in Paris and proposes marriage

1899 (Apr.) The Wind Among the Reeds published

1899 (May) The Countess Cathleen performed by the Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin

1900 (Jan.) Death of mother, Susan Yeats.

1900 (Mar.) Jubilee riots in Dublin

1901 (Oct.) Diarmuid and Grania produced in Dublin.

1902 (Apr.) Cathleen Ni Houlihan, with Maud Gonne in the title role, produced by W. G. Fay.

1902 The Pot of Broth produced by Irish National Theatre Society

1903 (Feb.) Maud Gonne marries John MacBride, a Boer War veteran

1903 (Nov.) Leaves for first U.S. Lecture Tour

1904 (Dec.) Abbey Theatre opens with On Baile's Strand

1907 (Jan.) J. M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World opens at Abbey

1907 W. B's father settles permanently in New York

1908 (Jan.) Fays resign from Abbey Theatre

1908 (Sept.) First volumes of W. B. Yeats's Collected Works published

1908 (Nov.) Mrs Patrick Campbell in Deirdre in Dublin and London

1909 (Mar.) Death of Synge

1911 (Sept.) W. B.accompanies Abbey Theatre on tour of U.S.

1911 (Oct.) Meets his future wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees

1913 (Nov.) Rents Stone Cottage in Sussex with Ezra Pound

1914 (Jan.) Leaves for U.S. Lecture Tour

1914 (Aug.) First World War begins

1915 (May) Hugh Lane, Lady Gregory's nephew, drowned on S.S. Lusitania

1916 (Mar.) First volume of autibiography, Reveries over Childhood and Youth, published

1916 (Apr.) At the Hawk's Well, modeled on the Japanese Noh, produced in London

1916 (Apr.) Easter Rising in Dublin

1916 (May) Execution of leaders of Easter Rising, among them John MacBride

1916 (July) W. B. visits Maud Gonne in Normandy. She again refuses his offer of marriage

1917 (Mar.) W. B. buys Thoor Ballylee, a Norman tower near Coole Park in Galway

1917 (Aug.) Proposes marriage to Maud Gonne's daughter Iseult and is refused

1917 (Oct.) Marries Georgie Hyde-Lees

1917 (Nov.) The Wild Swans at Coole published

1918 (Jan.) Settles in Oxford

1918 Death of Lady Gregory's son, Major Robert Gregory, in action

1918 (Sept.) W. B. moves into renovated Thoor Ballylee; rents Dublin home from Maud Gonne.

1918 (Nov.) End of First World War

1919 (Feb.) Birth of daughter Anne in Dublin

1919 (June) Gives up London apartment at Woburn Buildings

1919 (Oct.) Civil unrest in Ireland

1920 (Jan.) Leaves with his wife for U.S. Lecture Tour

1921 (July) Truce in Ireland

1921 Birth of Michael Yeats in Oxfordshire

1921 (Oct.) Four Plays for Dancers published

1921 (Dec.) Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in London

1922 (Jan.) Civil War in Ireland

1922 (Feb.) John B. Yeats dies in New York

1922 (July) W. B. receives Honorary degree from Trinity College, Dublin

1922 (Oct.) The Trembling of the Veil, second volume of autobiography, published

1922 (Dec.) W. B. elected to the Irish Senate

1923 (Dec.) Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

1926 (Jan.) First version of A Vision published

1926 (Feb.) Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars opens at Abbey Theatre. W. B. challenges rioters from Abbey stage

1927 (Nov.) Winters in Algeciras. Ill with congestion of the lungs.

1928 The Tower published

1928 (June) O'Casey's The Silver Tassie rejected by Abbey Theatre

1928 (Sept.) W. B. resigns from Irish Senate

1929 (Summer) Last visit Thoor Ballylee

1930 (Jan.) reads Jonathan Swift while recuperating from Malta fever in Italy

1931 (Sept.) Makes first radio broadcast from BBC in Belfast

1932 (May) Death of Lady Gregory after long illness

1932 (July) Buys lease on last home, "Riversdale," Rathfarnham, near Dublin

1932 (Oct.) Starts on last American Lecture Tour to raise funds for Irish Academy of Letters

1933 (July) Supports fascist Blueshirts in Dublin

1933 (Sept.) The Winding Stair and Other Poems published

1934 (April) Undergoes Steinach operation for rejuvenation

1935 (July) Death of AE

1936 (Jan.) W. B's health deteriorates

1936 (Nov.) His controversial Oxford Book of Modern Verse published

1938 First production of Purgatory at Abbey Theatre. W. B. makes final public appearance

1938 (Oct.) Death of Olivia Shakespear in London

1939 (Jan.) W. B. dies at Cap Martin in the south of France. Buried nearby at Roquebrune.

1939 (Sept.) Second World War begins

1941 Coole Park pulled down

1948 W.B's remains re-interred in Drumcliff, Sligo

1953 (April) Death of Maud Gonne

1968 Death of Georgie Hyde-Lees

If you would like more detailed information, seeA William Butler Yeats Encyclopedia, available in many college and public libraries

For a list of important study and research books on Yeats, see the Web PageYeats Selected Bibliography