Joyce, James ~ Finnegans Wake

First UK printing : Faber and Faber Limited : London: 1939

Large 8vo., dark red cloth, ruled with titles in gilt to spine; together in the matching red dustwrapper, lettered in yellow, with yellow flaps (unclipped, 25s. net); untrimmed edges; The BOOK is in Very Good+ or better condition, moderately spotted to the endpapers, prelims, final page of text, and edges as usually encountered due to the quality of the paper stock used; else internally clean; very mild bruising to the spine ends and corners; The fragile WRAPPER is in Very Good- condition, lightly nicked and chipped to the foot of spine and the ends of the folds; creased along folds; some toning to the upper edge, and some larger chips, particularly to the upper edges of panels, with one extending to 1.5cm and another to 2cm depth, but with no loss to lettering; internal flaps clean and bright yellow; significant for having no internal tape repairs or restorations. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First edition, first UK printing. Joyce’s last and most innovative prose work, which he began in 1922, and devoted sixteen years of his life to the process of writing. The publication was issued simultaneously in the UK and the US, along with a signed limited issue, on 4 May 1939. The trade issue comprised 3,400 copies printed for Faber, of which 950 in sheets were destroyed by the publisher, likely due to the price, which Joyce believed was too high. Commonly referred to as one of the most complex and obtuse works of 20th century Literature, Finnegans Wake was initially published in a series of fragments from 1924 onwards, as "fragments from Work in Progress". The pieces appeared in a number of literary magazines, most prominently in the Parisian literary journals Transatlantic Review and Eugene Jolas's transition. It was finally published in one volume in 1939. Joyce had been inspired by the claim, made by the 18th-century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico, that history is cyclical. To that end, the work ends with the first half of the first sentence of the novel. Through a language based on English, but combining words from many other sources, Joyce describes the lives of the Earwicker family; HLP, his wife ALP, and their three children. Given, however, the changeable approach to both plot and characters, the synopsis itself remains fluid, and the text is much studied by scholars even today. The initial response, even from Joyce’s closes family and friends, was bafflement at the seemingly impenetrable text. Even H. G. Wells, in a personal letter to the author argued that "you have turned your back on common men, on their elementary needs and their restricted time and intelligence [...] I ask: who the hell is this Joyce who demands so many waking hours of the few thousands I have still to live for a proper appreciation of his quirks and fancies and flashes of rendering?" In particular, Joyce’s use of “thunder words” - ten one-hundred letter words spread throughout the text - caused many to believe that the publication was a joke. A story with no real beginning nor end, blurring the lines between reality and dreaming, and undermining conventional English language, Finnegans Wake remains one of the most remarkable books to have been written in the 20th century. Of its intricate and complex nature, Joyce later wrote: “I am really one of the greatest engineers….I am making an engine with only one wheel. No spokes of course. The wheel is a perfect square.…No, it’s a wheel, I tell the world. And it’s all square.” Scarce with the wrapper.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good+
JACKET: Very Good-