JOYCE | Ulysses, Paris, 1922, 1/750, wrappers bound in

JOYCE, JAMES

Ulysses. Paris: Shakespeare & Company, 1922

4to, FIRST EDITION, NO. 877  OF 750 COPIES ON HANDMADE PAPER, original blue paper wrappers bound in, original publisher's prospectus loosely inserted, contemporary or near contemporary half linen by J. Tyssen of Ixelles (ticket on upper paste-down), decorated boards, red morocco label on spine, minor browning, upper hinge split and repaired with tape, wear to edges of binding

[tipped in at the beginning:] the original prospectus ("Ulysses | by | James Joyce | will be published in | the Autumn of 1921..."), Paris: Shakespeare and company, Sylvia Beach, 8, Rue Dupuytren, single leaf folded, photographic portrait of Joyce tipped in, browned, affixed to front endpaper with tape

THE EARLIEST ISSUE OF ARGUABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT AND INFLUENTIAL NOVEL OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. The total edition was limited to 1,000 copies of which 100 were numbered and signed on Dutch handmade paper, 150 numbered and printed on vergé d’Arches and another 750 were merely numbered. The official date of publication for Ulysses was Joyce's birthday, 2 February 1922, but difficulties with the cover meant that in fact only two copies, both from the 1/750 issue, were actually ready that day. No further copies of any issue of Ulysses appeared from Darantière until 9 February (when a further batch of the 1/750 arrived), followed by the first copies of the 1/100 on 13 February, and the 1/50 series on 4 March. It is now thought that this reflects the order in which Ulysses was actually printed, giving the edition of 750 - despite its higher numerical sequence - a kind of priority over the other issues.

Also loosely inserted or tipped to paste-down are press cuttings relating to Dublin and Ireland.

LITERATURE:

Slocum & Cahoon A17

PROVENANCE:

Baroness Grenier, delivered  on 20 April 1922 (see Laura Barnes' census, in appendix to Glenn Horowitz's catalogue James Joyce Books & Manuscripts, New York, 1996).

Baroness Giovannella Grenier (1875-1971), born Giovannella Caetani, was one of the last members of the celebrated Caetani family, the Italian dynasty prominent from the ninth century onwards, counting at least two popes among its members. She was the sister of the composer Roffredo Caetani (1871–1961), prince of Bassiano and last duke of Sermoneta, who worked to promote the works of Wagner in Rome. The Caetanis frequented the artistic and literary salons of Paris in the 1920s (their friends included Paul Valéry, Valery Larbaud, Leon-Paul Fargue, and Adrienne Monnier), and Baroness Grenier's sister-in-law Marguerite Caetani (neé Chapin) founded the literary journal Commerce in 1924, which published some of the first translations of Ulysses.

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