A LOVELY LIMITED EDITION OF ‘FINNEGAN’S WAKE’ SIGNED BY JAMES JOYCE.
First edition, signed limited issue, number 148 of 425 copies signed by the author, printed on handmade paper, and specially bound. The limitation was split between the British and American markets and sold simultaneously with the trade issues on 4 May 1939. “The most conspicuous innovation of Finnegans Wake is its use of ‘dream-language’. After Ulysses Joyce believed that he had ‘come to the end of English’, and his last novel is a pervasive layering of multilingual puns in successive drafts which produces a fabric rich in semantic possibilities” (ODNB). Burgess, 99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939, p. 25; Connolly, The Modern Movement 87; Slocum & Cahoon A49. Large octavo. Original red buckram, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, top edge gilt, other edges uncut, leaves unopened. Spine very gently sunned.