Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. B.W. Huebsch, New York, 1916.
Price: US$5000.00 + shipping
Description: First edition. [iv], 299, [1] pp. 1 vols. 8vo. First edition. First edition of Joyce's autobiographical novel, recounting the schooldays and emerging artistic consciousness of his alter-ego Stephen Dedalus. The novel was refused by Grant Richards (publisher of Dubliners), Secker, and Edward Garnett for Duckworth. Finally B.W. Huebsch agreed to take on the book, if Harriet Weaver, who had serialized the novel in The Egoist in 1914, would arrange for 750 copies to be published in London. It was published first in New York by Huebsch on 29 December 1916 and then in London on 22 January, with the American sheets and a cancel Egoist title-page. Slocum & Cahoon A11 Publisher's blue cloth, stamped in gilt on spine and in blind on front cover. Some rubbing spine ends, and slightly on corners, one scratch to front cover near spine, not affecting blind stamp; very clean internally
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
JOYCE, James.. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.. New York, B.W. Huebsch, 1916., 1916.
Price: US$6626.88 + shipping
Description: New York, B.W. Huebsch, 1916. 186 x 125 mm. 2 Bl., 299 Seiten. OLeinen. Bound in original blue publisher's cloth, lettered in blind and gilt. Rücken gebräunt, Kanten etwas berieben. First edition, frist printing. - Erste Ausgabe. - KLL IX, 7670. KNLL VIII, 914. - Mit dem autobiographisch geprägten Roman gelang Joyce die Revolution der modernen Literatur. Er schildert sein Leben von Kindesbeinen an bis zu dem Zeitpunkt, als er Irland als Student verläßt; dabei benutzt Joyce jeweils die dem Alter angepaßte Sprache. - Gutes Exemplar des seltenen Bandes. - "Stephen Dedalus describes his spiritual journey through his Jesuit education and petty bourgeois Dublin to forge through 'silence, exile and cunning' the 'uncreated conscience of his race.' Following close on 'Dubliner's' (for it appeared through 1915 as a serial in 'The Egoist') the portrait can be read either as an autobiography or a novel. A landmark in sensibility, the prose moves forward in complexity from the child's sensations at the beginning to the adolescent subtleties at the end" (Connolly). This is the first edition of the book published in New York in 1916. The first English edition (in 1917) was made up of American sheets because english printers would not accept the responsibility of printing it, on moral grounds. A Very good plus copy. Sprache: Englisch. *** Bitte kontaktieren Sie mich immer BEVOR Sie bestellen! Für ausführliche Beschreibungen und Bilder sowie günstigere Versandoptionen kontaktieren Sie mich bitte per Email! Please contact me always BEFORE you order! For detailled descriptions and photos as well as cheaper shipping options please send an email! ***
Seller: Antiquariat CoBrA, Oberrohrbach, Austria
Joyce, James. Dubliners. B. W. Huebsch, New York, 1916.
Price: US$7500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First Edition, First Printing. This First American edition is bound in the publisher's original cloth and is in great shape. The binding is tight with minor wear to the boards. The pages are clean with provenance: Clifton B. Carberry (1877-1940), managing editor of the Boston Post (stamp on endpaper and title, note); Daniel T. O'Connell, Harvard Club Boston (note on pastedown); sold The Old Corner Book store, Boston (bookseller's ticket). A lovely copy wtih a beautiful facsimile from the original.
Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.
Price: US$32500.00 + shipping
Description: First Printing, preceding the British edition by roughly two months. Octavo (19.25cm); blue cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and in blind to front cover; dustjacket; [iv],299,[1]pp. Spine ends gently nudged, hint of sunning to spine, rear hinge starting (but sound), with some faint, shallow staining to upper board edges; text is fresh, with the gilt titling bright and unrubbed; Very Good. In the original dustjacket, priced $1.50 net at mid-spine, with a brief holograph note in blue grease pencil at lower front panel, either in Huebsch's hand or someone at his office: "1st Ed addtl. copy." Sunning to spine and panels, old dampstain affecting spine and upper edge of front panel, with shallow losses along the edges the deepest of these affecting the "SCH" in the publisher's name at base of spine; several splits, tears, and attendant creases, a dozen of them skillfully (and nearly invisibly) mended on verso; Good to Very Good. Joyce's autobiographical first novel, first serialized in 25 installments in The Egoist between February 2, 1914 and September 1, 1915 by his great patron, Harriet Shaw Weaver. As for the book publication, she was unsuccessful at finding an English printer willing to assume the responsibility of setting the text seven of them refused to do it, all on moral grounds. "Under English law, unlike American, the printing of immoral writings is as actionable as their publication" (Slocum & Cahoon, p.20). Weaver sent a copy of her Egoist serialization to New York bookseller Edmond Byrne Hackett, who in turn contacted B.W. Huebsch, who undertook the publication of Portrait, just as he had for Dubliners several weeks earlier. ".on 16 June (an emblematic date for Joyce) Benjamin Huebsch wrote to Miss Weaver with his proposal: publication of the complete novel, with sheets printed in the US going to the English publisher under joint imprints, the costs being shared.He was anxious, he said, to see Joyce properly launched in America, and Pound recommended that Huebsch's offer be accepted" (Bowker, Gordon. James Joyce: A New Biography, p.226).Through his alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, Joyce "describes his spiritual journey through his Jesuit education and petty bourgeois Dublin to forge through 'silence, exile and cunning' the 'uncreated conscience of his race'.A landmark in sensibility, the prose moves forward in complexity from the child's sensations at the beginning to the adolescent subtleties at the end" (Connolly 26). The number of copies of the first printing is unknown, but a second was published in April, 1917, followed by three additional printings (1918-1922) before Huebsch merged his publishing house with the Viking Press. We know of no documented presentation copies of the American edition of Portrait; the present copy, likely one of a very few copies with distinguished provenance not already in institutional hands, was one of Benjamin Huebsch's own retained copies, left to his son, Ian Oscar Huebsch, then passed by inheritance to a family friend. Slocum & Cahoon 11.
Seller: Captain Ahab's Rare Books, ABAA, Stephenson, VA, U.S.A.