In a letter to his publisher, Yeats referred to The Wind Among the Reeds as "a book of short lyrics Irish & personal." It may also be described as a collection of love poems both intense and indirect. Now considered a watershed in Yeats's career, the book received mixed reviews when it was first published in April of 1899. More recently, Richard Ellmann has asserted that in The Wind Among the Reeds, "Yeats set the method for the modern movement.".

For the present volume, Carolyn Holdsworth has assembled and transcribed all holographic materials for each of the 37 poem in the book. She also supplies the complete typescripts and earlier printed versions corrected by Yeats, as well as providing a brief critical introduction. Photographic facsimiles supplement the transcriptions, and the apparatus criticus indicates variant readings.

The manuscripts collected here range from drafts on scraps of paper through heavily worked-over typescripts, to neatly copied texts from later years and proof sheets revised by hand. The result is an exhaustive guide to Yeats's work on the poems up to the publication of the book and a full record of his post-publication revisions

. Offering a close-up view of the various stages of composition of The Wind Among the Reeds, this edition affords a unique understanding of Yeats's creative process.