Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$95.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Salmon cloth, lettered in gold foil. 7th ptg.: Mar. 1957. Spine panel cloth a bit sunned, minor rubbing to corners and spine extremities. Text block edges typically tanned, former owner's signature stamp to upper front flyleaf, otherwise unmarked. 643 pp. Size: 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall
Seller: Saucony Book Shop, Kutztown, PA, U.S.A.
James Joyce. Finnegans Wake. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$100.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: First American edition: "First published May 1939" on the copyright page with no later printings listed. This book belonged to Leslie Llewellyn Elizabeth Grandal Lewis, his name in ink inside the front cover. He taught James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence at the Bauhaus. This book has his extensive notations in both ink and pencil throughout. Normally such notations would be a problem, but coming from a Joyce scholar they may have more than casual merit. Light wear to the binding. Front hinge broken but still strong. Pages tight with notations already noted. No odor. No water damage. No soiling. no sun fading. no dust jacket.
Seller: Book Stall of Rockford, Inc., Rockford, IL, U.S.A.
James Joyce. Finnegan's wake. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$120.00 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: 628 pages. First edition, first printing ("First published May 1939" at copyright page, no subsequent printings listed). The publisher's black cloth-covered binding are moderately worn at corners, edges, and head and foot of spine, and their sizing has been disturbed by moisture; the front inner hinge is broken, the rear cracked, the first blank is detached but present, the contents are unmarked save for offsetting from a newspaper article once placed between pages 480 and 481. 1120 grams.
Seller: Carothers and Carothers, Albany, CA, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$125.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Hard Cover. A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket. There is a large chip at the top of the spine. There is slight wear to the edges of the book, especial the corners and top of the spine. This copy is a 6th edition of James Joyce's last book.
Seller: Gebhard and Burkhart Books, Miami, FL, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$250.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 628p large octavo. A good copy in a good dust jacket. Black cloth boards are rubbed and soiled with minor wear to extremities. Text block foxed. Bookplate from previous owner pasted to ffep. Front inner hinge starting to crack but holding. Dust jacket is sunned along spine, moisture stained and soiled, with minor wear to edges, Jacket is overly trimmed by 1/4in.
Seller: Old New York Book Shop, ABAA, Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegan's Wake. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$300.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Scattered foxing to prelims, tanning and light soiling to edges, very light rubbing to black boards. Solid copy w/o DJ. BP/Fiction/Case
Seller: Bookplate, Chestertown, MD, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegan's Wake. Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$400.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Near fine in publisher's original black cloth, lacking the dust jacket. Bookplate on front paste down, and evidence of a note on the half title page that was erased. (the indentations from the note are evident on both the title page and its verso) Gilt on both the cover and spine still fresh and bright. A very nice copy.
Seller: James Graham, Bookseller, ABAA, Palm Desert, CA, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$450.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 628pp.; HB blk.w/gilt; slight rub w/hinges cracked; PONstamp; clean,tight pgs. DJ pale bluegray w/blue,red&white; heavy rub&soil w/2x5"chip,spine; wear on edges&corners; tape repairs on spine&edges. Joyce classic. includes corrections pamphlet (Faber & Faber, 1945)
Seller: Xochi's Bookstore & Gallery, truth or consequences, NM, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegan's Wake. Viking Press May, 1939, New York, 1939.
Price: US$549.99 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: No dust jacket; Original gilt-titled cloth. Slight soil to cloth, points softened, mild foxing to block edge, topstain faded. Tight and square. The DJ in mylar is edgeworn with creases, tears, chips, shallow losses, and foxing. ; Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall; 628 pages
Seller: curtis paul books, inc., Northridge, CA, U.S.A.
Joyce, James.. Finnegans Wake.. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$550.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First American Edition, First Printing. A Fine copy in black buckram, in a Poor dustwrapper, not price-clipped, but with heavy losses to front and back panels, spine-ends. 628pp. Joyce's final great work. Q19719
Seller: Compass Rose Books, ABAA-ILAB, Kensington, CA, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$799.99 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: No dust jacket; Black cloth titled in gilt. First edition, first printing. Tight and unmarked with a touch of corner/edge wear and some faint staining to cloth. Bookshop tag to rear endpage. The original DJ in mylar is lightly dampstained, chipped, edgeworn, and sunned to spine, with a tiny hole mid spine. Flap price $5.00. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 628pp pages
Seller: curtis paul books, inc., Northridge, CA, U.S.A.
JOYCE, JAMES.. Finnegans Wake. New York: Viking Press, 1939, 1939.
Price: US$850.00 + shipping
Description: First American Edition, published simultaneously with the English edition. Bookplate; very good in a dust jacket with a faded spine and some chips and tears. All books described as first editions are first printings unless otherwise noted.
Seller: Peter L. Stern & Co., Inc, Newton, MA, U.S.A.
JOYCE, James. Finnegans Wake. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$900.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First American edition. Large octavo. Black cloth stamped in gilt. Near fine in a moderately worn very good dust jacket that is about 1/8" shorter than the book, with shallow chipping at the crown, a small faint tape shadow on the front panel, and a couple of longer tears at the extremities. A nice presentable copy of the first American edition.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
James Joyce. Finnegans Wake. Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$975.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: I have only gone through about 250 of the books that I have inherited from my late father. There have been some very nice surprises found, rare first editions, signed special editions and so forth. This book may well turn out to be the prize of the whole collection. Dad was a great admirer of James Joyce as evidenced by his purchasing many books by and about him back in the 1930's, the voluminous articles he cut out of newspapers and magazines and placed in the books and even his writing style which mimicked lots of the tricks Joyce used, (deliberately misspelled words, run-on sentances and paragraph, stream-of-consciousness narratives.) So I was not surprised when this book showed up in his collection. This fine example of the May 1939 Viking Press first edition of Finnegans Wake has my late father's name and the date of May 1939 on the front overleaf. It has an ex-libras sticker inside the front cover. There is some toning of the end pages probably from the several magazine and newspaper articles Dad cut out and left inside the covers. There is one from the New York Times Book Review dated May 7, 1949. Another is from the Saturday Review of Literature dated January 25, 1941. Another from the same source dated August 12, 1939 identifies an error by the printer on page 34. A fourth is from Time Magazine's February 4, 1947 issue. And finally, inside the back cover, is another article from the New York Times Book Review for February 18, 1940 covering Herbert Gorman's biography of Joyce (which I am also offering for sale. It is my book number 000113!) Aside from the aforementioned items and some slight toning of the outside of the pages, the book is pristine. The dust jacket, while complete, has had a rougher life. The top and bottom of the spine are torn and missing small amounts of material. There is a triangular tear at back top of the spine that is 2 3/4 inches long. The top and bottom of jacket front and back is chipped, rubbed and torn in small measure. It is still pretty bright and attractive though. The front foldover has "First Regular Edition" and the price of $5.00 at the top. I will be posting 5 pictures of the book and jacket and the articles inserted. If anyone wants more photos just let me know what you need. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. A volume of this rarity deserves the best treatment. As a result, I believe shipping by insured registered mail would be appropriate. Contact me for information on costs.
Seller: Big E's Books, Lake City, FL, U.S.A.
JOYCE, James.. Finnegans Wake.. Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$1017.80 + shipping
Description: First U.S. edition. Bookplate, picture of Joyce clipped from a magazine is tipped on the e/paper, obituarly tipped on the rear pastedown o/w a fine copy in a d/w with a tape repair on the upper cover (2") and a piece of tape at the foot of the spine, but certainly very good.
Seller: David Mason Books (ABAC), Toronto, ON, Canada
Joyce, James.. Finnegan's Wake.. Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First American trade edition. U. S. And U. K. Editions were published simultaneously. About fine in black cloth covers with green top edge in very good+ or better dust jacket. (628pp. ) (Neat clear tape mends inside of jacket. A few small and tiny chips along with short edge tear to jacket. ) 6000 copies printed of the author's last great work. ; 6 1/4" x 9 3/4"; 628 pages
Seller: WAVERLEY BOOKS ABAA, Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.
JOYCE, James. Finnegans Wake. New York: The Viking Press, 1939.
Price: US$1750.00 + shipping
Description: First American Edition. Thick octavo. The final state of Joyce's long-gestating "Work in Progress," published in the same year as the signed Limited Edition co-published by Viking with Faber & Faber. Navy blue cloth boards with gilt lettering to front panel and spine and turqoise topstain; minor scuffing to textblock edges, else near fine. In unclipped typographic jacket, with some scuffing and light creasing at edges, with minor chipping to lower edge of front panel; thus close to near fine. A pleasing copy.
Seller: Harper's Books, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake.. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$2000.00 + shipping
Description: First American edition, one of 6000 copies printed. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with light rubbing. A very sharp example. Joyce began working on Finnegans Wake shortly after the 1922 publication of Ulysses. By 1924 installments of Joyce's new avant-garde work began to appear, in serialized form, in Parisian literary journals transatlantic review and transition, under the title "fragments from Work in Progress". The actual title of the work remained a secret until the book was published in its entirety, on 4 May 1939. The work has assumed a preeminent place in English literature. Anthony Burgess praised the book as "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page." Harold Bloom called the book "Joyce's masterpiece", and wrote that "[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon [Finnegans Wake] would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante." Modern Library named it one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake.. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$2000.00 + shipping
Description: First American edition of Joyceâs masterpiece. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and ruling to the spine, raised bands, gilt ruled to the front and rear panels, gilt signature to the front panel, inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In fine condition. An exceptional presentation. Joyce began working on Finnegans Wake shortly after the 1922 publication of Ulysses. By 1924 installments of Joyce's new avant-garde work began to appear, in serialized form, in Parisian literary journals transatlantic review and transition, under the title "fragments from Work in Progress". The actual title of the work remained a secret until the book was published in its entirety, on 4 May 1939. The work has assumed a preeminent place in English literature. Anthony Burgess praised the book as "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page." Harold Bloom called the book "Joyce's masterpiece", and wrote that "[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon [Finnegans Wake] would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante." Modern Library named it one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake.. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$2200.00 + shipping
Description: First American edition, one of 6000 copies printed. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a very good dust jacket with a few chips to the spine. Housed in a custom half morocco slipcase. Joyce began working on Finnegans Wake shortly after the 1922 publication of Ulysses. By 1924 installments of Joyce's new avant-garde work began to appear, in serialized form, in Parisian literary journals transatlantic review and transition, under the title "fragments from Work in Progress". The actual title of the work remained a secret until the book was published in its entirety, on 4 May 1939. The work has assumed a preeminent place in English literature. Anthony Burgess praised the book as "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page." Harold Bloom called the book "Joyce's masterpiece", and wrote that "[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon [Finnegans Wake] would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante." Modern Library named it one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First edition, first printing. Publisher's black cloth binding lettered in gilt. Fine, with fading to topstain near spine, in a Near Fine unclipped dust jacket with several tiny edge-tears, and very light soiling. A striking copy of a book and jacket typically found in much lesser condition.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. FINNEGANS WAKE. The Viking Press, New York, 1939.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Description: First Printing, one of 6,000 copies. Octavo (24.75cm); black cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine; teal topstain; dustjacket; [vi],628,[2]pp. A Fine copy, with the topstain bright and unfaded. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced $5.00), showing pinpoint wear to extremities, and four tiny edge tears; very Near Fine, entirely unfaded and unrestored. Joyce's last major work, a challenging work of fiction significant for its experimental style and use of language. Fragments of the work first appeared in 1924, in the pages of literary journals Transition and Transatlantic Review; the UK and US editions were published simultaneously, on May 4, 1939. Slocum & Cahoon 48; Connolly 100.
Seller: Captain Ahab's Rare Books, ABAA, Stephenson, VA, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Faber & Faber Limited & The Viking Press, London & New York, 1939.
Price: US$15500.00 + shipping
Description: 628 pages. 26 x 17 cm. Limited edition, copy 22 of 425 signed by James Joyce in green ink. Joyce wished to puzzle critics with his novel's plot which is not nearly as complex as the linguistic tactics he employed, and he did both. Finnegans Wake met with mixed review: some said it was unreadable, others praised Joyce for ingenuity. Joyce combined use of a number of languages with complex ironic implications to create wordplay and hidden meaning throughout this work. His polyglot idiom of puns and portmanteau words was intended to convey the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. The density and layers of meaning have induced scholars to dedicate a good portion of their lives studying it. The critic and scholar Richard Ellman was best known for his literary biography of Joyce noted, "In his earlier books Joyce forced modern literature to accept new styles, new subject matter, new kinds of plot and characterization. In his last book (Finnegans Wake) he forced it to accept a new area of being and a new language." Connolly: The Modern Movement 87. Slocum & Cahoon A49. Slight spine fading, some minor soiling to slipcase. Orig. publisher's orange/red buckram, backstrip lettered in gilt. Fine in the original yellow cloth slipcase as issued. Teg
Seller: Royoung Bookseller, Inc. ABAA, Ardsley, NY, U.S.A.
JOYCE, James. FINNEGANS WAKE. Faber & Faber/Viking Press, London/New York, 1939.
Price: US$15625.00 + shipping
Description: Original red buckram with gilt lettering on the spine. Copy #222 of 425 numbered copies printed on handmade paper and SIGNED by the author on the limitation page. One of the most important books of modern English fiction, if not one of the more readable. "Joyce insisted that each word, each sentence had several meanings and that the 'ideal lecteur' should devote his lifetime to it, like the Koran" (Connolly, THE MODERN MOVEMENT, 81); "The greatest failure in literature" (Burgess, 99 NOVELS: THE BEST IN ENGLISH SINCE 1939, page 25). Touch of wear to the heel of the spine which is mildly sunned. Lacking the original slipcase but with a custom-made slipcase in its place. Near Fine in a Fine custom slipcase
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.
JOYCE, James.. Finnegans Wake.. London: Faber & Faber; Viking Press, New York, 1939, 1939.
Price: US$16034.52 + shipping
Description: First edition, signed limited issue, number 366 of 425 copies signed by the author, printed on handmade paper, and specially bound; complete with the publisher's slipcase. 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. Housed in publisher's yellow cloth slipcase. Later compliments slip from Patricia MacManus (1914-2005) of the Viking Press, marking the publication of Steinbeck's East of Eden on 19 September 1952, loosely inserted. Spine very gently sunned and bumped at foot, minor rubbing, internally clean; lightly soiled slipcase with wear to edges and two short splits: a near-fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$19500.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. James Joyce. FINNEGANS WAKE. Signed Limited Edition. London; Faber & Faber; New York, 1939. 4to., 260 x 171 mm [10 1/4 x 6 3/4"]. 4 p.l., [first blank], 628 pp. Original gilt titled brick red buckram, edges untrimmed. In the original [mildly soiled] yellow cloth slipcase which is in solid very good or better condition. Curiously with a possible original clear plastic dustwrapper not mentioned in the bibliography but for all intents and purposes, this wrapper has always been on the book. An extremely attractive example, spotless text block, neatly signed by Joyce on the limitation's page, number 216 of 425 copies only. - Slocum and Cahoon A49. Having exhausted all the possibilities of English in "Ulysses," he had only one recourse for his next project, which was to create an entirely new language as a pastiche of all the existing ones; the result is "Finnegans Wake." The language in "Finnegans Wake" is a continuum of puns, portmanteaus, disfigured words, anagrams, and rare scraps of straightforward prose. What Joyce does is exploit the way words look and sound in order to associate them with remote, unrelated ideas. For example, his phrase "Olives, beets, kimmells, dollies" may sound familiar to those who happen to know that the first four letters of the Hebrew alphabet are aleph, bet, gimel, daled. "Psing a psalm of psexpeans, apocryphul of rhyme" recalls a nursery rhyme that may reside quietly in your most dormant memory cells, while "Where it is nobler in the main to supper than the boys and errors of outrager's virtue" sounds like a drunk auditioning for the role of Hamlet. Imaginary adjectives that pertain to letters of the English alphabet are employed to describe Dublin as a city "with a deltic origin and a nuinous end." "Finnegans Wake" is the ultimate in esoterica, and what you get out of it depends largely on your store of knowledge, so that upon completion, with a mutual wink at Joyce, you congratulate yourself for being so clever. In 1994, in The Western Canon, Harold Bloom wrote of Finnegans Wake: "[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon [it] would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante,"
Seller: TBCL The Book Collector's Library, Montreal, QC, Canada
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Faber & Faber; Viking Press, London New York, 1939.
Price: US$25000.00 + shipping
Condition: As New
Description: Limited Edition of of 425 copies printed. This copy is authentically SIGNED by James Joyce in green ink on the limitation leaf. A magnificent copy. The book is in excellent condition and appears UNREAD. The book is bound in the ORIGINAL publisher's cloth. The binding is tight with NO cocking or leaning and the boards are crisp. There is NO writing, marks or bookplates in the book. Overall, a stunning copy with the publisher's slipcase SIGNED by the author. We buy SIGNED Joyce First Editions.
Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.