JOYCE, James.. Chamber Music.. London: Elkin Mathews, 1907, 1907.

Price: US$3849.80 + shipping

Description: First edition, first impression, of Joyce's first book. The publishing history of Chamber Music is well-documented but has some lacunae. The book was published on 10 May 1907 in an edition of 509 copies, but Mathews did not bind all copies at once, resulting in three variants, distinguished by slightly different cloth and endpapers. There have been a number of different guesses as to how many copies Mathews bound in each variant, but it is likely that copies in the second and third variants were bound simultaneously in or about 1911, after the first 205 copies in the first binding had sold. The present copy is in Slocum and Cahoon's third variant binding, with the cloth in a slightly darker shade of green than the first, and with the pages trimmed slightly shorter, resulting in some poems in the third gathering appearing poorly centred; the third variant has thin transparent wove endpapers, the second has thick wove endpapers. Slocum & Cahoon A3. Small octavo. Original light green cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt. Illustrated title page. Spine slightly toned, extremities rubbed and a little frayed at spine ends, endpapers browned and a little marked, front hinge partly cracked but firm, contents clean: a very good copy.

Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom

JOYCE, JAMES A.. Chamber Music. Elkin Mathews, London, 1907.

Price: US$4750.00 + shipping

Condition: Near Fine

Description: Original green cloth, lettered in gilt to the front panel and spine. The green of the spine is just a shade paler than that of the front and rear boards. Previous owner book-plate to the front paste-down. Gorman, an early Joyce biographer, states there were 509 copies of the first printing. The book appears in three variants with this one being variant "C." The poems in signature c are poorly centered. Some very minor shelf-wear to the spine ends and very minor foxing to the endpapers. Slocum and Cahoon, #3 - pp 5-9. Near Fine.

Seller: First Place Books - ABAA, ILAB, Walkersville, MD, U.S.A.

JOYCE, James. CHAMBER MUSIC. Elkin Mathews, 1907.

Price: US$7699.59 + shipping

Description: First edition, first state with thick laid endpapers of larger size, poem on signature c well centred. Original green cloth with gilt titles. A near fine copy, with slight dustiness to the spine and minor wear to the spine ends. Bookplate to front pastedown. A fresh copy of an uncommon book. Joyce's first commercially published work. "Arthur Symons, to whom Yeats introduced Joyce in December 1902, was responsible for the publication of Chamber Music and for much of the praise it received. Symons submitted the manuscript to Grant Richards for Joyce in September 1904. When Richards refused to publish it without subsidy from Joyce, Symons offered it to Constable. Eventually Elkin Mathews accepted and published it at Symons' urging." (Slocum & Cahoon) Only 509 copies of the first edition were printed, and second and third issues included in the printing are likely to have been issued at a significantly later time. Although fine copies of the third state surface not infrequently as a batch of remaindered copies were discovered, this first state is rare with the number issued likely to be less than 100. Slocum & Cahoon A3

Seller: Jonkers Rare Books, Henley on Thames, OXON, United Kingdom

JOYCE, James. Chamber Music. Elkin Mathews, London, 1907.

Price: US$9500.00 + shipping

Condition: Fine

Description: First edition, first issue. 16mo. [40]pp. Light green cloth gilt. Contemporary owner name in blue pencil on front fly, faint soil mark on front board, the lettering on the spine is still bright, thus near fine in a fine example of the publisher's unprinted glassine dust jacket. The very scarce first issue of James Joyce's first trade book, preceded by two broadsides. This is the first binding variant according to Smoot and Cahoon A3: "First variant: Thick laid end papers with horizontal chain lines. 16.2 x 11 cm. Poems in signature C well centered on page." Published in a total edition of 509 copies. According to booksellers Bernard Quaritch (*Bulletin 19* 1984) only "fifty or a hundred" copies of the first variant were bound and issued in 1907. Contemporary presentation copies appear in the first binding, and it certainly seems plausible that, due to low demand, only a small number of copies were bound in 1907.

Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.