Book Reviews at The View

"It is the old battle," wrote Lady Gregory to W.B Yeats, "between those who use a toothbrush and those who don't." She was referring to the 1907 riots at the Abbey Theatre provoked by J.M. Synge's 'The Playboy of the Western World'. Colm Toibín's biographical essay examines the contradictions that defined Augusta Gregory (neé Persse), landlord, nationalist, anti-colonialist and anti-revolutionary, black-clad dowager and passionate friend and lover. She wrote plays (including most of W.B. Yeats's 'The Countess Cathleen'), fed, watered and otherwise encouraged some great writers including the same Yeats, Synge, Shaw and O'Casey, and founded the world's first national theatre. 'Lady Gregory's Toothbrush' will be launched on the 150th anniversary of her birth at her former home, Coole Park.

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