Books

London: Shakespeare and Company, 1927. First Edition. Good. First trade edition, first printing. A fantastic association copy, signed by legendary publisher Sylvia Beach with a contemporary inscription dated Paris August 18, 1928 opposite rear paste-down. Bound in publisher's pale green boards faded to tan, with errata slip tipped in at rear. Good, with cracking at spine leaving binding very fragile, cup ring to upper cover. Joyce's second book of poetry, a slim volume containing 13 poems. Sylvia Beach was an American ex-pat, known for her iconic Paris bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, where she published James Joyce's Ulysses (1922), and encouraged the publication of and sold copies of Hemingway's first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923). While autographed copies of her book Shakespeare and Company published in 1960 are often available on the market, Joyce titles with Beach's contemporaneous inscriptions from the heyday of the Lost Generation era are extremely uncommon and…

Pomes Penyeach is a collection of thirteen short poems by James Joyce. It was originally published on July 7, 1927 by Shakespeare and Company for the price of one shilling (twelve pence) or twelve francs. The poems were written over a twenty-year period from 1904 to 1924, and two of the pieces ('Tilly' and 'A Prayer') had already appeared in James Joyce's earlier published work, 'Chamber Music'.

Identifying a first edition of 'Pomes Penyeach' may involve checking the publisher's imprint for the 1927 Shakespeare and Company publication details, including the publication date and the price of twelve francs.