Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
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. , 1939.
Price: US$5500.00 + shipping
Description: "JOYCE, James. Finnegans Wake. London: Faber and Faber, (1939). Large octavo, original red cloth, uncut and unopened, original dust jacket. $5500.First trade edition of Joyces "last and most innovative prose work."Finnegans Wake stands as "Joyce's last and most innovative prose work, written in a revolutionary narrative style that approximates the protean nocturnal dream world [that gave] Joyce the freedom he needed to weave together archetypal and historical themes that embrace, among other things, the creation, the fall and the resurrection of humanity" (Fargnoli & Gillespie, 74). Joyce began writing Finnegans Wake in 1922, the same year Ulysses saw publication. Compared to that book, Finnegans Wake "took longer to write was conceived and executed under a greater range of symbolic and mythic guidelines, was dictated to more famous amanuenses, among them Samuel Beckett, was used as a weapon of revenge by Joyce, who mocked in it the people who had offended him in short, it was the inscription on the walls of eternity of James Joyce's feelings, his prejudices and his obsessions" (Arnold, 55). "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). Published simultaneously with the signed limited first edition (British and American issues), which consisted of only 425 copies. Slocum & Cahoon 47. Bookplate.Book fine, with slight offsetting to one front endpaper; bright price-clipped rare dust jacket near-fine with light rubbing to edges including a few small chips to top edge, very minor abrasion to front panel. A lovely copy."
Seller: Bauman Rare Books, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
Price: US$12500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Signed by James Joyce on dedication page, Copy number 380 of 425cc. 628pp, large octavo in salmon cloth boards, no slipcase, gilt title/author/date to spine, top page edges gilt, deckled edges; tight binding, slight edge wear, tiny faint spot at top front and rear boards, very light fading to spine, some pages remain uncut, bookplate of Florence M. Lankershim to FFEP, interior clean throughout, Very Good+ in mylar. First published in 1939, this was Joyce's final work. Signed, Limited Edition.
Seller: COLLINS BOOKS, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. FINNEGANS WAKE. Faber & Faber, 1939.
Price: US$13277.50 + shipping
Description: FINNEGANS WAKE, Faber & Faber, 1939, first edition, some faint grey specks along the spine, else a tight vg+ copy. Of 425 specially bound copies, this is 1/125 copies of the English issue SIGNED by the author. Among the most controversial and important 20th century works of literature.
Seller: THE FINE BOOKS COMPANY / A.B.A.A / 1979, ROCHESTER, MI, U.S.A.
Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake.. Faber & Faber, London, 1939.
Price: US$14000.00 + shipping
Description: First signed limited edition, number 115 of only 425 large-paper copies signed by Joyce. Large octavo, original red cloth, titles to spine in gilt, top edge gilt, original publisher's yellow cloth slipcase. Signed by James Joyce on the limitation page. In near fine condition. 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. 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.
Price: US$15986.49 + shipping
Description: London, Faber and Faber, und New York, 1939. Gr.-8°. 4 ungez. Bl., 628 Seiten. Roter Original-Buckramleinenband mit goldgeprägtem Rückentitel, Kopfgoldschnitt (Vorderdeckel gering fleckig, Ecken minimal bestoßen). Original red cloth. Slocum-Cahoon A 49. - Erste Ausgabe in limitierter Auflage dieses wunderbar verflixten und wortverspielten Textes. Nr. 408 von 425 num. Exemplaren, von Joyce im Druckvermerk handschriftlich signiert. - Vorderer Vorsatz mit kleinem Einriß im Bug. Zweiseitig unbeschnitten. First (limited) edition. Original Buckram wrappers. On two sides uncut. Our item No. 408 of 425 numbered copies on large handmade (mould) paper. Signed by Joyce in the colophone. A near fine copy (cover slightly brightened in some parts). 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.. Finnegans Wake.. London: Faber & Faber; Viking Press, New York, 1939, 1939.
Price: US$16152.15 + 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, London, 1939.
Price: US$20000.00 + shipping
Description: Tall 8vo, original brick red cloth, top edge gilt, other edges uncut. London: Faber & Faber, 1939. Limited First Edition. Number 356 of only 425 numbered copies signed by Joyce. There is some residue from tape on the front & back fly-leaves, otherwise a nearly fine copy, in the original yellow cloth box which has very slight wear on the front edges.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Joyce James. FINNEGANS WAKE. London Faber and Faber 1939, 1939.
Price: US$20350.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition, First Issue, Signed by James Joyce and limited to 425 copies only, of which this is number 341. 8vo, publishers original red buckram lettered in gilt on spine, t.e.g., other edges untrimmed. Yellow cloth slipcase expertly re-created as the original. 628. A fine copy, very handsome, bright and clean, very well preserved and without wear. The slipcase in beautiful condition. IMPORTANT FIRST EDITION SIGNED BY JAMES JOYCE. A very desirable copy of this, the best and scarcest issue of the first editions. No book has ever been more ambitiously conceived than Joyces FINNEGANS WAKE. If ULYSSES represents the pinnacle of the Modernist movement, FINNEGANS WAKE is a step beyond; it stands in the same relation to ULYSSES as ULYSSES does to A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST.an extension which is also a completely new conception. Joyce envisioned the book as nothing less than a "history of the world." Seventeen years in the writing, and composed in a sort of meta-language--"an Esperanto for the art of fiction"--it stands as a unique monument to language and literature and the modern age.
Seller: Buddenbrooks, Inc., Newburyport, MA, U.S.A.
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.