A first edition, first impression, trade-issue copy of Joyce’s last and most innovative prose work, Finnegans Wake.<ul><li>James Joyce (Irish).</li><li>London: Faber &amp; Faber, 1939.</li><li>Large octavo.</li><li>Bound in the publisher’s burgundy cloth, titles to spine gilt, with the unclipped dust jacket, housed in green morocco gilt solander box.&nbsp;</li></ul> One of 3,400 sets of sheets for the trade edition of Finnegans Wake which were printed for Faber. Of these, 2,255 were bound and sold at 25 shillings, 950 were destroyed by the publisher and the remaining were gratis copies. It is possible that the 950 discarded sets of sheets remained unsold because of the price, which Joyce believed was too high. "'A way alone aloved alost along the…' If Finnegans Wake is a key book, it is a key which needs a key" (Connolly). "His work is enriched by such large resources of invention and allusion that its total effect is infinite variety" (Harry Levin).

Finnegans Wake

The <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=James+Joyce&amp;pfilters.dateRange=upcoming" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">James Joyce</a>'s first fiction, Dubliners.<ul><li>James Joyce (Irish).</li><li>London: Grant Richards Ltd, [1914].</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>278 pages.</li><li>One of 746 bound for Richards (1250 copies printed).</li><li>Original dark red cloth, gilt stamped lettering on the spine and front cover.</li></ul> The rocky publishing history of Dubliners is well documented: finished in 1905, it was rejected by 15 publishers before Grant Richards accepted it. Richards' printers refused to set some of the type – inaugurating Joyce's lifelong struggle with censorship – and Joyce refused most of Richards' changes. It was then taken up by Maunsel &amp; Roberts of Dublin, who eventually came to a similar conclusion. Maunsel even burned all but one of the copies of the sheets, which Joyce managed to wheedle out of him, and it was given back to Richards, who set the type from the lone Maunsel sheet saved from the flames. Joyce subsequently added "A Little Cloud" and "The Dead" – possibly his most famous single story – to the collection.

Dubliners | First Edition

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> limited edition of Finnegan's Wake by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=James%20Joyce&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">James Joyce</a>.<ul><li>James Joyce (Irish).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Faber &amp; Faber Limited / Viking Press,&nbsp;1939.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>628 pages.</li><li>Limited Edition, #122/425.</li><li>Bound in publisher's brick red buckram, spine stamped in gilt, uncut and unopened as issued, housed in publisher's yellow cloth slipcase, stamped "Made in England" inside of the case.</li></ul>

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