Joyce, James

Finnegans Wake. London: Faber & Faber, 1939

Large 8vo. Publisher's clo♑th, to𓂃p edge gilt, uncut and partially unopened; very lightly sunned. Publisher's cloth slipcase; sunned, light wear at extremities.

First edition, limited issue, number 28 out of 125 copies signed by Joyce (out of a total edition of 425 copies).

Joyce began writing this unparalleled modernist experiment in 1922, the same year that Ulysses was published. Compared to Ulysses, the present book "took longer to write... was conceived and executed under a greater range of symbolic and mythic guidelines, was dictated to more famous amanuenses, among them Samuel Beckett, was used as a weapon of revenge by Joyce, who mocked it in the people who had offended him... in short, it was the inscription on the walls of eternity of James Joyce's feelings, his prejudices and his obsessions" (The Scandal of Ulysses, 55).

"Joyce insisted that each word, each sentence had several meanings and that the 'ideal lecteur' should devote his lifetime to it, like the Koran" (Connoly, The Modern Movement, 81).

REFERENCE:

Slocum & Cahoon, 49