Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$1503.54 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 21cm x 16.5cm. (xv)55pp. Top edge rough trimmed; all others untrimmed. Heavy paper wraps with folding flaps (lacking original glassine dust-jacket) are heavily toned, showing foxing on front panel and a few small spots of soiling on rear panel. Spine is chipped at base with a 3cm loss to backstrip which does not affect vertical titling ("FRAGMENTS JOYCE") but does lose the final "9" in "1929". Internally very good; original owner's ex libris (John Leed Kerr / New York 1929) on second preliminary endpaper, otherwise unmarked. Brancusi's abstract "portrait" of Joyce, with original tissue guard intact but partially detached, opposite preface. Of 500 copies printed on Van Gelder Zonen Holland paper (from a total edition of 650), this is numbered 64 on colophon page.
Seller: The Paper Hound Bookshop, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Price: US$2012.50 + shipping
Description: Frontis by Brancusi, 8.25 x 6.5", printed wraps, 55pp, pp a little edge-toned but still a beautifully preserved, clean, fresh copy. FIRST EDITION, LIMITED TO 500 NUMBERED COPIES ON HOLLAND VAN GELDER ZONEN (this is copy #74). Missing slipcase.
Seller: John K King Used & Rare Books, Detroit, MI, U.S.A.
Price: US$2200.00 + shipping
Description: xvi, 64 pp. Original printed wrappers, in publisher's slipcase. One of 500 copies on Holland Van Gelder Zonen paper, of a total edition of 650 copies. Frontispiece portrait of Joyce by Brancusi. A fine copy with supplied later acetate wrapper, in the original slipcase, which is rubbed with tape repair at the corners, splitting at the top edge, and lacking a three-inch piece of the lower edge. Brancusi's frontispiece portrait, commissioned by the publishers Harry and Caresse Crosby, was a "Symbol of Joyce" intended to convey the sense of "enigmatic involution." When the sketch was shown to Joyce's father in Dublin, he remarked gravely, "The boy seems to have changed a good deal." (Ellmann, p. 614). Slocum & Cahoon A36. Minkoff, Black Sun, A-21.
Seller: Triolet Rare Books, ABAA, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: One of 500 copies on Holland Van Gelder Zonen of a total edition of 650, with an original etched abstract portrait frontispiece by Constantine Brancusi. Bound in wraps in later glassine with foil covered slipcase with ribbon pull. Modest discoloration to the binding; the slipcase rubbed.
Seller: Moroccobound Fine Books, IOBA, Lewis Center, OH, U.S.A.
Price: US$3000.00 + shipping
Description: A very fine, clean and tight copy in original glassine wrapper and slipcase. Copy is very clean and bright. Original glassine has no tears, no chips. Copy number 161/500 copies, comes in a custom clam shell box. Slip case is tight with rubbing to the edges. A very nice copy. Tossed in, a worn copy, at no cost, Haveth Childers Every-Where. First Printing.
Seller: Booklegger's Fine Books ABAA, Park Ridge, IL, U.S.A.
JOYCE, JAMES. Tales Told of Shem and Shaun. Black Sun Press, Paris, 1929.
Price: US$3000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Original white wraps printed in red and black. New glassine. Housed in original slipcase with On laid gilt. Edition limited to 500 numbered copies. This is #233. Frontis by Brancusi. 53 pp. A fine copy of a now scarce item. Size: 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall
Seller: Contact Editions, ABAC, ILAB, Toronto, ON, Canada
Price: US$3180.06 + shipping
Description: First edition, first printing, number 224 of 500 copies on Holland paper, from a total edition of 650 copies; there were also 100 signed copies on japon and 50 hors commerce copies. This a particularly attractive example, retaining the publisher's striking metallic slipcase. Preceded by Anna Livia Plurabelle (1928), this is the second separately published portion of what was to become Finnegans Wake (1939). It contains "The Mookse and the Gripes", "The Muddest Thick that was ever heard dump", and "The Ondt and the Gracehoper". It also includes introductory comments on Joyce's use of language by C. K. Ogden, the inventor of Basic English and the co-author of The Meaning of Meaning (1923). Slocum & Cahoon A36. Small quarto. Original white paper wrappers, spine and front cover lettered in red and black, publisher's device to rear cover in black. With the publisher's metallic slipcase. Abstract frontispiece portrait of the author by Constantin Brancusi, with tissue guard. Text printed in black and red. Minor rubbing to extremities, else a fine copy in the original slipcase.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$3250.00 + shipping
Description: 55 pages. 21 x 17 cm. Limited edition, copy 325 of 500 on Holland Van Gelder Zonen. Preface by C.K. Ogden. Portrait of the author by C. Brancusi. Title printed in red and black: The three fragments are entitled; "The Mookse and the Gripes. The Muddest Thick That Was Ever Heard Dump. The Ondt and the Gracehoper." Binding by Andrea Kohler. The three fragments comprise pp. 152-159, 282-304 and 414-419 respectively of "Finnegans Wake." The image by Brancusi is a graphic work. THE ARTIST & THE BOOK 1860-1960," notes: "A portrait as abstract as the author's text." This was one of the last books printed at the Black Sun Press. Crosby committed suicide in December, 1929. Slocum and Cahoon A36. Kohler binding in fine red velvet and gold framed slipcase housed in fine black leather spine folding box lettered in red and black. Orig. printed stiff wrappers. Fine in original glassine nicked with some minor loss
Seller: Royoung Bookseller, Inc. ABAA, Ardsley, NY, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. TALES TOLD OF SHEM AND SHAUN. Black Sun Press, Paris, 1929.
Price: US$3322.19 + shipping
Description: Three Fragments from Work in Progress. Preface by C. K. Ogden. Pp. [vi]+xvi+56(last blank)+[2](colophon, verso blank), printed in red & black, black & white frontispiece abstract portrait of Joyce by Constantin Brancusi, with loose tissue guard; f'cap. 4to; printed paper wrappers with flap folds, lettered in red & black on the upper wrapper and spine, with publisher's device in black at centre of lower wrapper; uncut; with the original glassine wrapper (slightly soiled, edges browned and split, with a few small chips, now protected by a later mylar sleeve); lacking the original card slipcase but housed within a later custom made black cloth solander box with gilt lettered red leather title label on spine, book label of David Levine, Sydney, on reverse of box lid; Black Sun Press, Paris, 1929. First edition, being one of 50 hors de commerce copies [total edition 650], stamped HC below the colophon. Minkoff A21; Slocum & Cahoon A36. *With the publisher's With Compliments card loosely inserted. The three 'fragments' (The Mookse and the Gripes, The Muddest Thick That Was Ever Heard Dump and The Ondt and the Gracehoper) eventually became part of Finnegans Wake.
Seller: Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Three Fragments from a Work in Progress. With a "Portrait" by Brancusi. Sq. 8vo, printed wrappers with original glassine. Paris: The Black Sun Press, 1929. First Edition. Contains work that was later to appear in Finnegans Wake. Number 66 of 500 copies. Fine, in the original gilt slipcase. Slocum & Cahoon, A-36.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$4235.00 + shipping
Description: First edition, LIMITED. One of 500 numbered copies on Holland Van Gelder Zonen of a total edition of only 650, this being copy 205. With a preface by C. K. Ogden. With an original etched abstract portrait frontispiece by Constantine Brancusi, it is the only artwork done for a book illustration by the famous sculptor, with tissue guard. Printed in red and black throughout. 8vo, publishers original cream paper wrappers printed in red and black, in the original gilt leafed red paperboard slipcase. xv, 55 [2] pp. A fine copy, internally prisitine, a upper hinge with small slit at the gutter, the slipcase a bit worn and lacking the back strip. SCARCE FIRST EDITION LIMITED OF THE SECOND SEPARATELY PRINTED PORTION OF FRAGMENTS OF "A WORK IN PROGRESS", AND WHAT WOULD ULTIMATELY BECOME FINNEGANS WAKE. FINNEGANS WAKE is perhaps the most ambitiously conceived novel of all time and is the pinnacle of the Modernist movement in literature. 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.
Seller: Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$6996.13 + shipping
Description: First edition. Number 38 of 100 copies on Japanese Vellum signed by the author. 4to. 212x168mm. [8], XV, [1], 55, [3]. Original cream paper wrappers lettered in black and red to upper cover and spine and with 'black sun' motif on the lower cover. Original glassine wrapper. Slight chipping to head of spine and there are some tears to the glassine wrapper at the spine and to the front wrapper but overall in very good condition. Internally excellent with only very minor marking in a few places. Housed in the cardboard slipcase covered with green paper and edged in silver paper to which there is some slight marking and wear to the edges. Signed on the half title by James Joyce in black ink and illustrated with Constantin Brancusi's etching Symbole de Joyce, intended by the artist to capture Joyce's "sens du pousser" and described as "a portrait as abstract as the author's text". With a preface by C.K.Ogden who, in the same year as the publication of Shem and Shaun, arranged a recording of Joyce reading from Anna Livia Plurabelle, the first published section of Work in Progress. In an interview of 1936, Joyce said "I haven't lived a normal life since 1922, when I began Work in Progress. It requires an enormous amount of concentration.Since 1922 my book has become more real to me than reality, and everything has led to it". "My book" is Finnegans Wake to which, during its seventeen year gestation, Joyce gave the name Work in Progress. In the late 1920s, Joyce published three sections of Work in Progress: Tales Told of Shem and Shaun is the second. Reviews concentrated on the Joyce's verbal brilliance while noting its limited appeal. To H.G.Wells, Work in Progress was "an extraordinary experiment" but also "a dead end". Joyce was undeterred. In 1937, two years before the publication of Finnegans Wake, Joyce said of "the few fragments which I have published" that they "have been enough to convince many critics that I have finally lost my mind.And perhaps it is madness to grind up words in order to extract their substance, or to graft them one onto another, to create crossbreeds and unknown variants, to open up unsuspected possibilities for these words, to marry sounds which were not usually joined together before, although they were meant for one another, to allow water to speak like water, birds to chirp in the words of birds, to liberate all sounds of rustling, breaking, arguing, shouting, cracking, whistling, creaking, gurgling - from their servile, contemptible role and to attach them to the feelers of expressions which grope for definitions of the undefined".
Seller: Voewood Rare Books. ABA. ILAB. PBFA, Holt, United Kingdom