Books

1934. London: Faber and Faber. 1934. 8vo. Red cloth with gilt lettering to spine; pages untrimmed; pp. [6] 628; foxing to front and back endpapers; one line of ink to the last page ot text; very good copy of first edition. Provenance: perforated stamp on the last page of the text reading ‘Complimentary copy - not for sale’, having come originally from the library of Edwin Muir, who wrote one of the early reviews Review copy of the first edition of Joyce's final masterpiece. Written over a period of seventeen years, Finnegan's Wake is considered one of the most complex and confounding literary contirbutions. It is composed in a unique and unorthodox vocabulary that melds together standard English with the language of old Irish manerisms, neologisms and puns confirming its status as one of the 20th century's most bold and elusive voices. After the publication of Ulysses, Joyce would not write a single line of prose for a year, after which the earliest reference to the genesis…

Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It is significant for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works in the Western canon. The book, Joyce's final and most avant-garde work, is structured as a sort of feverish dream containing multilingual puns, numerous literary and historical allusions, and a rich tapestry of themes.