LADY GREGORY was founder of the Abbey Theatre and patron of W.B. Yeats, writer of successful plays and celebrated translations of Irish legends, the daughter of a Galway landowner and mistress of Coole Park. She never expected to make her mark on the literature or the land of her birth. Yet she became a key figure in the Irish Revival. Judith Hill s biography investigates Augusta Gregory s varied relationships and the contradictions and achievements of her life, and brings her out from the shadow of Yeats. A woman of great emotional restraint, she nevertheless fell in love with the poet Wilfrid Blunt and, at 60, had a brief romance with her friend, the New York lawyer John Quinn. This portrait of a fascinating woman places Lady Gregory in the Ireland of her time, depicting her journey into nationalist politics and unravelling the connection between her life and work.