Joyce, James

broadside (588 x 230mm.), FIRST EDITION, printed on white wove paper, folding clamshell case

Slocum & Cahoon A7

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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A very rare copy of Joyce's irreverent and mocking satirical poem on the publisher and printer who destroyed "Dubliners", and his bitter farewell to Ireland.

Slocum & Cahoon refer to Joyce's note on the Esher-Randle-Keynes-Spoerri copy (now held in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas), that this poem was written "in the railway station waiting room at Flushing, Holland on the way to Trieste from Dublin after the malicious burning of the 1st edition of Dubliners (1000 copies less one in my possession) by the printer Messrs John Falconer. Upper Sackville Street Dublin in July 1912".

The remarkable story of the destruction of the 1910 Maunsel edition by the printer John Falconer (Joyce declared that the proofs were "burnt entire almost" in his presence: see Collected Letters, II, p.399) is part of the larger, infamous story of the publication history of Dubliners. A succession of publishers and printers considered and then even began work on the book, but all before Grant Richards in 1914 ultimately pulled out because of suggestive or possibly obscene passages in "Two Gallants" and "Ivy Day in the Committee Room", references to Edward VII and Queen Victoria (considered offensive), and other portions of the text of apparently questionble taste. By 23 August 1912, when Joyce heard from George Roberts at Maunsel that there were further objections to proceeding, for fear of potential libel actions, the writer was beginning to feel that  the whole future of his life was slipping out of his grasp (so he wrote to Nora): he had no money, hope, or youth left. He even felt like acquiring a revolver to put "some daylight into my publisher" (see Ellmann, op.cit. p.331). Thus were the sheets destroyed (whether actually by fire, or by guillotining and pulping, is not entirely clear). Remarkably, the one set of proofs Joyce claimed to have saved, and which it was thought had been subsequently lost, eventually surfaced in his brother Stanislaus's papers, and were sold here at Sotheby's on 8 July 2004 (lot 179). Joyce had no further business in Dublin in the late summer of 1912, and he left with Nora and the children to return to Trieste. He was never to return to Dublin. It was on this return journey, and specifically whilst waiting for a connection at Flushing in Holland, that he penned Gas from a Burner, which ostensibly is in the hypocritical and self-justifying voice of Roberts himself, but in fact is combined with the printer Falconer. According to Ellmann he completed the poem in the train on the way to Munich, and then had it printed on his return to Trieste on 15 September. Copies were then sent to his brother Charles to distribute in Dublin.