33 B a u m a n R a r e B o o k s “Passages Of Unearthly Beauty”: Signed Limited First Edition Of Finnegans Wake, The Copy Of Angela’s Ashes Author Frank McCourt 35. JOYCE, James. Finnegans Wake. London and New York, 1939. Large octavo, original red cloth, slipcase. $25,000. Signed limited first edition, American issue, of Joyce’s “inscription on the walls of eternity,” one of only 310 largepaper copies for America (of a total edition of 435 copies) signed by Joyce in green ink. The copy of acclaimed IrishAmerican author Frank McCourt. Finnegans Wake stands as “Joyce’s last and most innovative prose work, written in a revolutionary narrative style that approximates the protean nocturnal dreamworld… [that gave] Joyce the freedomhe needed to weave together archetypal and historical themes that embrace, among other things, the creation, the fall and the resurrection of humanity” (Fargnoli & Gillespie, 74). Published simultaneously with the first trade edition and the signed limited first edition, British issue of 125 copies; the Viking Press “brought out and sold [this] limited edition of 310 copies [although the limitation page states only 300], the sheets of which were imported from the English publisher Faber & Faber. [The Viking] limited edition is identical with that of the British publisher and bears both imprints” (Slocum & Cahoon 49). The copy of Pulitzer Prizewinning author Frank McCourt, sold to him by Bauman Rare Books in 1998. McCourt once wrote, “Over the years we’ve aged, the hair whitening or graying, and many of us have long passed the age at which Joyce died, fiftyeight. Joyce’s work has liberated many an artist while his life stands as a lesson to us all. He suffered greatly: the growing failure of his eyes, the growing madness of his daughter. All his days he skirmished for pennies, and fought pitched battles for his art. He was a family man, fiercely tribal, and we must not forget he was driven by love” (Frank McCourt, Yes I Said Yes I Will Yes: A Celebration of James Joyce, Ulysses, and 100 Years of Bloomsday, xiii). Book with interior quite nice, slightest soiling to front board, and mildest toning to spine. Slipcase with light wear and soiling. A lovely nearly fine copy with wonderful provenance. “'Tis as human a little story as paper could well carry.”
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