Ulysses by Joyce, First Edition (24 results)

No Binding. Condition: Not A Book. Dust Jacket Condition: Clamshell As New. Custom Clamshell Case. Custom Clamshell Case. No Binding. First Edition Clamshell Case. Beautiful clamshell first edition leather bookcase. [Not with Book].Superbly HAND-CRAFTED by our conservation team, the First Edition box is gilt-lettered & dated on the spine & features an embossed [sculpted] upper cover 'ULYSSES' typographical design. The case's exterior is finished in a fine black calf & the inside in a fine Ulysses Blue cloth. The box is perfectly sized to accommodate the true first edition. A Terrific Collector's Custom Case for an important Book. TBCL Web Site photo/link available for more than 100 of generally in-stock titles. Custom Craft available.

Leather. Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. Large 8vo. Full Oasis leather with gilt titles, all to match the original wraps which are bound in. This is the second printing overall, and the first British edition of Ulysses in October 1922 after Sylvia Beach's landmark First publication (Shakespeare & Co) in February 1922. Limited edition of 2000 copies of which this is number 436. Original wrappers bound in a little worn at the edges, with some light chipping to the fore-edge to the fragile paper for a couple of preliminary leaves, limitation page with a small paper repair to the top edge to mend a short tear, paper a little age-toned, but in all, an excellent copy in very good condition and very attractive in this new binding, housed in a matching half-leather clamshell. The 7 page errata not present here.

First English edition of Joyce's masterpiece, limited to 2,000 copies. Thick quarto, bound in three quarters green morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles to the spine, printed from the original plates in Dijon. One of 2,000 numbered copies printed on handmade paper, this is number 1528. Of the 2,000 copies printed 500 were sent to the United States, of which "a good number of copies sent by ordinary book post to the U.S.A. got through to their various destinations, but some time between October 1922 (when the Egoist edition as published) and December, the U.S.A censorship authorities evidently became suspicious.until finally 400-500 copies were confiscated and burnt". In near fine condition. Errata laid in. Housed in a custom morocco folding box. An exceptional example. 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).

Limited edition #1532 of 2000. First UK edition (printed in France). 732 pp. Hardcover in plain paper wrapped boards and blue cloth spine with gilt title. Inner hinges loosening, but binding still solid. Previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown. Handmade paper. Though this is the first edition of Joyce's masterpiece by an English publisher, it was published in Paris by John Rodker for the Egoist Press, as the book was still outlawed in the UK and US. Rodker used the original plates from the Shakespeare & Company first edition of February of the same year. This copy includes the eight pages of errata laid-in. This copy also carries the provenance of Claudius Edmund Delbos, M.A., LL.D. (June 28, 1878 - January 27, 1949), AKA "C. Edmund Delbos" Delbos was a renowned landscape painter and etcher. Born in London, England, to Clara Ann Ralph (b. 1854) and Leon Edmond Delbos (1850 - November 13, 1915). His given name was "Claudius," later shortened to "Claude," and later dropped completely when he became known as "C. Edmund Delbos." His father, Leon, was a professor of languages at King's College, London, England, and was a noted author and editor as well as having served as an officer-instructor in the British Navy and as the general editor and examiner for the University of Oxford. He was the author of over a dozen books on a variety of topics. Claudius Edmund Delbos was educated both in England and France. Though born in London, part of his youth was spent in Dartmouth Harbor, Devon, where his father worked for the Royal Navy. His cousin was the painter Henri Regnault and Delbos himself was a student in Paris, France of the artist Adolphe Dechenaud (June 28, 1868 -1929) with whom he shared a birthday. He was the elder brother of American painter Julius Maximilian Delbos (1879-1970) who also like his brother worked for a time as a teacher of art, music and French at schools in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New York City. Their nephew, Claude Meyer Delbos, was also an artist who lived and worked in France. An academic like his father, Claudius Delbos first taught at Downside Abbey in Bath, England and in 1904 he arrived at Montreal to teach at the prestigious Upper Canada College Preparatory School, located in Toronto, Canada. Delbos served at the school from 1904 through 1908. He came to the United States permanently around 1910 to take up his longest appointment, from 1910 through 1925, as the headmaster of the Newman School (closed 1942), which was located first in Hackensack, New Jersey and later moved to Lakewood (where his brother Julius also resided between 1920 and 1927). Delbos was a respected bibliophile and editor, and among works he edited were: España and Émaux et Camées by Théophile Gautier (1907), and Poésies choisies de Alfred de Musset (1925). A portion of his extensive rare book holdings were sold through Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York City in 1943. He is also known to have been a friend and mentor of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), who attended the Newman School, where he served as one of the associate editors of the school paper, the Newman News. Letters between Fitzgerald and Delbos are included in Andrew Turnbull's book The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1963). Though Delbos depicted many European scenes during his career, including those at Pont Aven, Brittany, San Gimignano, Italy, and in Devonshire, England, he became known in America for his scenes of Massachusetts, in particularly of the villages and towns of Gloucester, Lanesville, and Rockport. In fact, he was part of a group of "artist activists" in Gloucester, where he had a summer home and studio during the 1930s named "Tighnamara," which was located at Bass Rocks. The group included Delbos himself and fellow artists John Barry, Theresa Bernstein, Frederick L. Stoddard, and William Meyerowitz. They were influential in helping to establish, in 1933, an art exhibition that featured the work of Cape Ann artists which were featured at local businesses in the center of Gloucester. The Michigan History Magazine noted during his lifetime that Delbos was " . . . well-known for his landscape paintings and etchings." After decades as a bachelor, on November 15, 1924 Delbos married Marie Hall Fuger (September 7, 1872 - November 30, 1961), widow of Lieutenant William Frederick Fuger (February 21, 1869 - November 26, 1915). Her family had owned the famous estate "Tonnancour," located on the shores of Lake St. Clair in Michigan. How they met in unknown, as Delbos is not known to have settled in the Detroit area until after his marriage. However, it is likely that they met during his last years as headmaster at the Newman School, perhaps while she was visiting with friends in New York City. They eventually settled just outside Detroit, where they resided at 333 Lincoln Road, Grosse Pointe, Michigan. In December of 1938 he petitioned the Michigan courts for United States citizenship. He and his wife were very active in several art groups. Delbos himself was a member of the Artists Market; the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts; The Detroit Symphony Society; the Fine Arts Society; the Gloucester Society of Artists; the Grosse Pointe Artists Association; and the Detroit Museum of Arts Founders Society. He was a donor of money and objects to multiple museums, including the Detroit Institute of Arts (where he gave a Rohlfs tempera and Guercino drawing), and the Toledo Museum of Art (where he donated an oil by William Frederick Mayor). Delbos was also was a benefactor who helped to mount a major exhibition of paintings by Polish artists at the end of World War II (Polish Paintings: a Loan Exhibition, June 1st to July 1st 1945, at the Detroit Institute of Arts in association with the Friends of Polish Art). Delbos exhibited widely, and there are doubtless more exhibitions yet unknown that could be added to the following list of known exhibitions in which he participated during his lifetime: Detroit Society of Arts and Cr.

Paris: John Rodker for the Egoist Press, 1922. 4to, [15], 732, (1)pp. Later half black morocco, gilt top, backstrip richly gilt, original Aegean blue printed wrappers bound in. A very good copy tastefully bound and preserving the iconic wrappers. § First UK edition, number 715 of 2,000 copies printed (500 were seized and burned by the U.S. customs upon arrival); with half-title and 7 pages of errata at the front. Long bookseller's note in pencil at back (by John Howell-Books), priced $75. Joyce's ground-breaking modernist novel was first serialized in the American journal The Little Review and was the target of the first of many censorship attempts soon after the publication of the Nausicaa episode. Despite being banned in the UK and suppressed in the US well into the 1930s the novel was recognized as a landmark in literature from its earliest reviews. "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." - T.S. Eliot. Slocum & Cahoon A18.

Errata sheet laid-in. 2-1/2" closed tear at bottom of back joint. 1/2" tear at bottom front joint. Otherwise fine in somewhat worn slipcase Squarish 4to. bound in publisher's blue wraps. Untrimmed fore-edge and bottom edge of text block First English Edition, #1856 of 2000 copies.

Soft cover. Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. A very good plus first edition. London: Published for the Egoist Press, 1922. First English edition, printed in France. Limited to 2,000 copies on handmade paper, of which this is number 1,591. Large octavo. [xii], 732 pages. Publisher's original paper wrappers, Untrimmed. With errata laid in. Housed in a matching green cloth chemise and slipcase, chemise with brown leather label lettered in gilt.the spline is almost near fine. A few spots not affecting text.

First British edition. First British edition. (Published by John Rodker in London, October of 1922, following the Paris printing in February the same year. Technically printed in France, but for British private distribution.) [vi], 732 pp. Bound in publisher's printed wraps, on handmade paper. Copy #275 in a limitation of 2000. Near Fine with the fragile wraps in truly excellent shape; very rarely found unsophisticated with such little wear, especially on the spine, which typically has much, much more chipping and wear; no restoration done to it. Typical toning to contents, bump to bottom right corner with a hint of creasing. A literary milestone in wonderful shape.

Condition: Very Good +. First edition. One of 750 copies on handmade paper, from the wider first edition limitation of 1,000 copies. Based on Sylvia Beach's records, it has been asserted that, out of the three issues of the first edition, this one was sent out first. This copy marked as number 482. Modern blue half morocco gilt over marbled boards, bookplate of Giles Alexander Esme Gordon to front pastedown. Front free endpaper with some marginal restoration, a few small unrestored closed tears to preliminary leaves, a little occasional foxing, a few gatherings a little roughly opened. Housed in a custom morocco-backed clamshell case. A Very Good+ copy. Arguably the key text of the Modernist movement. "Joyce, not to mince words, is Ireland's Shakespeare, its Goethe, its Racine, its Tolstoy" (John Sutherland). The book also proved to be a major test case for laws of freedom of expression. "Forced underground by censors, this was a cryptoclassic already before it was read, a subversive colossus" (Sherry). Provenance: Giles Gordon was a literary agent and writer, working for publishers Secker & Warburg and Gollancz (the latter as Editorial Director) before representing writers such as Peter Ackroyd and Vikram Seth. Slocum and Cahoon A17. (7586). Very Good +.

Hardcover in slipcase. First Edition. One of 750 numbered copies on handmade paper from a total edition of 1000 copies. This being No. 310. Quarto, bound in full blue morocco. The original wrapped are bound in rear. Near Fine in bespoke slipcase with blue morocco spine, five raised bands and gilt lettering.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. This is the original 1922 text, limited to 1000 copies published by Shakespeare and Company, this being # 784 (used for the Orchises Press facsimile, a copy of which is included). Rebound in teal green, the color to which most of the 1922 covers have oxidized. The front cover is bound into the text. Clean throughout, deckle edges. Please see my attached photos of the two books included in your purchase. More photos and information available on request.

First edition of Joyce's masterpiece, one of 750 numbered copies printed on handmade paper from a total edition of 1000 copies, this is number number 817. Thick quarto, original blue and white wrappers. In very good condition with some expert restoration to the spine and a crease to the front wrapper which has been coloured. Housed in a custom half morocco chemise and clamshell box. 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).

First edition, first printing of Joyce's masterpiece, one of 750 numbered copies printed on handmade paper from a total edition of 1000 copies, this is number 909. Thick quarto, bound in full morocco by Baker Bindery with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, triple gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and wide gilt scrolled inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt. In near fine condition. An exceptional example. 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. 1st Edition. According to Sylvia Beach's Ulysses Notebook this copy was sold to a George Wythe, in March 25, 1922. [Slocum & Cahoon A17].

Hardcover. Condition: Wie neu. Dust Jacket Condition: Wie neu. 1. Auflage. First Edition, First Printing. This is number 959 of the edition of 750 numbered copies (of a total edition of 1000 copies). Original blue wrappers - front and back - bound in. A tall copy (leaf size 183 by 235mm) in near fine state: the wrappers very fresh, the pages clean, only the edges slightly browning. Most beautifully bound in different dark blue leathers by renowned Swiss bookbinder Jean Luc Honegger (and signed by him). While we always prefer unbound books in their original condition, Ulysses is such a fragile book that we have come to love bound issues: you can take the book into your hands ("yes"), read it ("yes") and appreciate it much more ("Yes.").

First edition, number 418 of 750 copies on handmade paper numbered 251 to 1,000. This attractive copy is finely bound, retaining the distinctive original blue wrappers at the front and rear. The edition was published on 2 February 1922 in imitation of the traditional three-tiered French format, which was aimed at both connoisseurs and general readers. It consisted of 100 signed copies on Dutch handmade paper, 150 large-paper copies printed on heavier vergé d'Arches, and 750 copies on vergé à barbes, which formed the trade issue. One of the key texts of 20th-century modernist literature, Ulysses also proved a major test case for laws of freedom of expression. "Forced underground by censors, this was a cryptoclassic already before it was read, a subversive colossus" (Sherry, p. 1). Its creator is considered one of the great geniuses of modern literature: "Joyce, not to mince words, is Ireland's Shakespeare, its Goethe, its Racine, its Tolstoy" (Sutherland). Horowitz, Census, p. 121; Slocum & Cahoon A17. Brian Patrick Duggan, Saluki: The Desert Hound and the English Travelers Who Brought It to the West, 2014; Vincent Sherry, Joyce: Ulysses, 2004; John Sutherland, "Ireland's Shakespeare", The Guardian, 10 Feb. 2004. Small quarto (234 x 184 mm). Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in greenish blue morocco, spine lettered in gilt, quintuple gilt ruled border to spines and covers, turn-ins ruled in gilt, cream endpapers, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, original wrappers bound in. Housed in a matching leather entry slipcase by the Chelsea Bindery. A fine copy.

Slocum Bibliography #17. Joints are cracked. Otherwise fine condition. Beautiful leather binding decorative stamped gold inner dentelles. Marbled paper endpapers. Two blank flyleaves. Original blue paper covers with fold over edges trimmed off. Top edge gilt Limited edition, #448 of 1000 copies. One of 750 copies printed on handmade paper.

softcover. Condition: very good. first. Small quarto. Original blue wrappers, titles to upper wrapper in white. In a blue quarter morocco case. Very good condition with a chip at the ipper left corner of the front panel of the dj. From a total edition of 1000 copies, this is one of the last 750 on handmade paper. Some pages uncut at top.

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. Both front boards bear the name of "JOAN" in vertical gilt capital letters. The spine of volume I is missing 6" of the 9.5" of the spine length, but the top portion with "I" is present. 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. Both volumes have some pencil scrawls on the front endpapers, but nothing affecting the text. 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 vergà 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.

First edition, number 825 of 750 copies on handmade paper numbered 251 to 1,000. Sylvia Beach's notebook records that this copy was one of two dozen sold to "Miss Weaver (on sale)". Harriet Shaw Weaver was Joyce's indispensable patron, without whose munificent backing Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake might never have been published. As a measure of Weaver's paramount importance to Joyce, he inscribed copy number 1 of Ulysses to her. Ulysses was published in imitation of the traditional three-tiered French format aimed at both connoisseurs and readers: 100 signed copies on Dutch handmade paper; 150 large-paper copies printed on heavier vergé d'Arches, and 750 copies on vergé à barbes forming the trade issue. The novel was published on 2 February 1922. Widely recognized as the key book of 20th-century English literature, Ulysses is among the major works in the modernist canon, and its creator one of the great geniuses of all literature: "Joyce, not to mince words, is Ireland's Shakespeare, its Goethe, its Racine, its Tolstoy" (John Sutherland). The book also proved to be a major test case for laws of freedom of expression. "Forced underground by censors. this was a cryptoclassic already before it was read, a subversive colossus" (Norman Sherry, James Joyce, Ulysses, 2nd edition). Slocum & Cahoon A17. Horowitz, Census, p. 131. Small quarto. Original blue wrappers, titles to cover in white. Housed in a dark blue leather backed book-form box. Pencil ownership inscription of veterinarian and Joyce collector, Alfred T. Cowie (1916-2003), dated 1954, to first blank. Mild rubbing to extremities with some loss to spine ends, wrappers lightly soiled but entirely unrestored, very few trivial spots within, a very good copy.

First edition of Joyce's masterpiece, one of 750 numbered copies printed on handmade paper from a total edition of 1000 copies, this is number 276. Thick quarto, original blue and white wrappers. In near fine condition, square and tight with a touch of rubbing to the crown and foot of the spine. Housed in a custom slipcase. An exceptional example. 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).

First edition, number 760 of 750 copies from the handmade paper issue numbered from 251 to 1,000. As recorded in Sylvia Beach's notebook, kept from 21 May 1921 to 1 July 1922 to account for the original customers of Ulysses, this was one of two copies purchased by the British journalist Sir Roderick Jones (1877-1962) on 10 March 1922. Jones was managing director of Reuters from 1916 to 1941; in 1920 he married the writer and playwright Enid Bagnold. The edition comprised 1,000 copies published on 2 February in the traditional three-tiered French format aimed at both connoisseurs and readers. There were 100 signed copies printed on Dutch handmade paper, 150 on the larger vergé d'Arches, and 750 on vergé à barbes forming the trade issue. The highpoint of modernist prose in English, the book also proved a major test case for laws of freedom of expression. "Forced underground by censors. this was a cryptoclassic already before it was read" (Sherry, p. 1). Its creator is one of the great literary geniuses: "Joyce, not to mince words, is Ireland's Shakespeare, its Goethe, its Racine, its Tolstoy" (Sutherland). Horowitz, Census, p. 121; Slocum & Cahoon A17. Vincent Sherry, Joyce: Ulysses, 2004; John Sutherland, "Ireland's Shakespeare", The Guardian, 10 Feb. 2004. Small quarto. Original blue wrappers, front cover lettered in white. Housed in a custom blue quarter morocco slipcase with marbled sides and blue cloth chemise by the Heritage bindery (dated 1983 on chemise). Title added in manuscript on spine. Wrappers notably bright, neat repair to foot of spine, short tear at foot of front joint, light rubbing to extremities, contents clean and largely unopened. A near-fine copy of this fragile publication.

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.

First edition, number 129 of 150 large paper copies, here in the distinctive original wrappers, rare thus. Loosely inserted is the publisher's prospectus for the work, advertising its publication as Autumn 1921, though it eventually appeared on the author's fortieth birthday, 2 February 1922. The edition comprised 1,000 copies issued in the traditional three-tiered French format aimed at both connoisseurs and readers. There were 100 signed copies printed on Dutch handmade paper, 150 copies on the larger vergé d'Arches, and 750 copies on vergé à barbes. Its generous margins make the large paper format the most aesthetically pleasing of the three formats. This copy was ordered on 4 March 1922 by the London-based booksellers Stevens & Brown, as recorded in Sylvia Beach's notebook of the first buyers of Ulysses. They were one of Beach's best customers, spending over 3,000 francs for many copies across all three formats. The firm was co-founded by the American Benjamin Franklin Stevens (1833-1902), a library and literary agent who sent "a stream of the grandest literature of the world setting steadily across the Atlantic due west. Many were the battles royal of the auction room between B. F. Stevens as representing America, and Bernard Quaritch as representing England, for the two were the principal agents of the great book collectors, the noblemen and millionaires who never let money stand in the way of making their libraries complete" (Fenn, pp. 111-13). Stevens was also a bibliographer who produced the 25-volume work Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America, 1773-1783 (1889-1898). Horowitz, Census, p. 120; Slocum & Cahoon A17. George Manville Fenn, Memoir of Benjamin Franklin Stevens, 1903. Small quarto. Original blue wrappers, front cover lettered in white, fore and bottom edges uncut, leaves largely unopened. Housed in a custom green cloth chemise and quarter morocco solander box. Short split to spine head, neatly repaired, subtle repairs to joints and extremities, small surface loss to head of front joint, a couple of minor marks to contents, else clean. A very nice copy of the large issue in the notably bright wrappers.