Ulysses by James Joyce: First Edition, Signed, Shakespeare (3 results)

First edition, number 760 of 750 copies on handmade paper, from a total edition of 1000 copies. Original 'Greek flag' blue-green wrappers, lettered in white to upper cover. A near fine copy, with a short tear to the front joint at the base of the spine and trivial wear to the corners with "Ulysses" added in manuscript to the spine, but fresh and crisp, with notably vivid colouring. Internally fine and tight. A superb example of a fragile production and rare in this condition. Housed in chemise and quarter morocco slipcase. The author's most famous work and tour de force of modern literature. The first printing of Ulysses consisted of 1000 numbered copies to be sold by subscription. Copies number 1-100 were printed on Holland handmade paper and each signed by Joyce; copies 101-250 were printed on vergé d'Arches and the remaining 750 copies on linen paper, the least expensive stock. Following a disastrous serialisation in the Little Review, it was to Sylvia Beach and her small Parisian bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, that Joyce turned. Beach, like Andersen before her, had immediately seen the genius in Ulysses, and wrote to her mother that she might be soon to publish "the most important book of the age". A printer was found in Maurice Darantière of Dijon and publication was planned for October. The printing process was not nearly as straightforward as anticipated, due in part to Joyce's continual rewriting of the text and his and Beach's perfectionism in the printing process. The publication date was continually moved back and eventually 2 February 1922, Joyce's birthday, was settled upon. Copies were delivered in tranches and all 1000 of the first edition were sold within a month. It is now recognised as one of the key works of the twentieth century and the defining work of the modernist movement. Slocum A17; Connolly 42. …

Fourth printing of Joyce's masterpiece, signed by him. Quarto, original wrappers. Signed by the author in the month of publication on the front free endpaper, "JamesÂJoyce Paris 7 January 1924." In very good condition, the joints lightly repaired. Housed in a custom clamshell box. Uncommon signed. Ulysses was published in Paris by Shakespeare & Company, 1922. It was a struggle for the author to find a publisher, a comic irony considering that Ulysses is "[u]niversally hailed as the most influential work of modern times" (Grolier Joyce 69). Ulysses was an immediate success. The first printing sold out, and "within a year Joyce had become a well-known literary figure. Ulysses was explosive in its impact on the literary world of 1922" (de Grazia, 27). Even so, the book faced difficulties in global reception. It was banned in the U.K. and was prosecuted for the obscenity in the Nausicaa episode (Ellmann, 1982). Joyce's inspiration for the novel began as a young boy reading Charles Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses and writing an essay entitled "My Favorite Hero" after being impressed by the wholeness of the character (Goreman, 1939). The idea for the novel grew from a story in Dubliners in 1906, which Joyce expanded into a short book in 1907, before reconceptualizing it as the heady novel in 1914 (Ellmann, 1982). The book can initially seem unstructured and chaotic, and Joyce admitted that he "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant" (The Observer, 2000). The French translator Stuart Gilbert published a defense of Ulysses shortly after its publication in which he supported the novel's use of obscenity and explained its internal structure and links to the Odyssey against accusations of ambiguity. Every episode, Gilbert explained, is connected to the Odyssey by theme, technique, and correspondence between characters. Another instance of Ulysses' literary contribution is his use of stream-of-consciousness, a technique employing carefully structured prose, both humorous and charactering, and involving puns and parodies. Joyce was a precursor to the use of stream of consciousness in the later decades. Similar narrative techniques were used by his contemporaries Virginia Wolfe, William Faulkner, and Italo Svevo. Their style can be better characterized as an "interior monologue, rather than stream of consciousness, is the appropriate term for the style in which [subjective experience] is recorded, both in The Waves and in Woolf's writing generally" (Stevenson, 1992). …

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Specially bound in full leather in 2 volumes. This is number 389 of a the special 750 copies printed on handmade, laid paper. Signed and dated in ink by James Joyce: "James Joyce, Paris, 9. ix. 1924" on the front endpaper following the front blue wrapper. Joyce's Signature has been authenticated by Glenn Horowitz of NYC. Volume I contains 370 pages. Volume II begins on page 371 and and ends on p. 732 with the "Trieste-Zurich-Paris, 1914-1921" dateline. The next page is printed in capital letters: "Printed for Sylvia Beach by Maurice Darantiere at Dijon, France." The rear wrapper is not present at the end of volume two. Both volumes have been specially bound in full leather with 4 gilt rectangular rules and a delicate inner rectangle of hand-tooled chain patterns culminating in larger floral designs at the inside corners of the front and rear boards. Handsomely rebacked in leather spines with gold rules and title. Both front boards bear the name of "JOAN" in vertical gilt capital letters. Possibly a reference to Joan Bridges Baez, the mother of Joah Baez.The front blue wrapper printed in white with "Ulysses" by James Joyce is clean and crisp, as is the text throughout volumes one and two. Apparently, the pages have been trimmed. The front blue wrapper measures: 9 x 7 All pages of text measure 9 x nearly 7 . The right side margins measure 1.25 ; top margins measure 1 from the text to the top edge. The bottom margins measure a tad under 1.5 . The left, inside margins measure .75 . The top edges are gilded. And there are predominantly orange and grey marbled endpapers. There is hand-tooled dentelle gilding along the front and rear inside edges of the boards as well. Despite the unusual two-volume format and the missing rear wrapper, modern first edition authority Allen Ahearn opined that this signed and dated copy in Joyce's hand of one of the 750 specially printed first editions is perhaps as scarce as one of the 100 signed copies, given that none of the 750 copies was issued with Joyce's signature. This copy was signed and dated two years after publication in 1924. This edition is limited to 1000 copies: 100 copies (signed) on Dutch handmade paper numbered from 1 to 100; 150 copies on vergé d'Arches numbered from 101 to 250; 750 copies on handmade paper numbered from 251 to 1000. This is copy No. 389. "The publisher asks the reader s indulgence for typographical errors unavoidable in the exceptional circumstances. S.B." In a review in The Dial, T.S. Eliot said of Ulysses: "I hold this book to be the most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape." He went on to claim that Joyce was not at fault if people after him did not understand it: "The next generation is responsible for its own soul; a man of genius is responsible to his peers, not to a studio full of uneducated and undisciplined coxcombs." The book has its critics; Virginia Woolf stated that "Ulysses was a memorable catastrophe immense in daring, terrific in disaster." Ulysses has been called "The most prominent landmark in modernist literature", a work where life's complexities are depicted with "unprecedented, and unequalled, linguistic and stylistic virtuosity." That style has been stated to be the finest example of the use of stream-of-consciousness in modern fiction, with the author going deeper and farther than any other novelist in handling interior monologue. This technique has been praised for its faithful representation of the flow of thought, feeling, mental reflection, and shifts of mood. (Wikipedia) First Edition, One of 750 numbered copies. Seller Inventory # 310. First and special edition: This is number 389 of a the special 750 copies printed on handmade, laid paper. Signed and dated in ink by James Joyce: "James Joyce, Paris, 9. ix. 1924" on the front endpaper following the front blue wrapper. Signed and dated by Author. …