signed first edition
1935 · New York
by Joyce, James; Henri Matisse (illustrator)
New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1935. First edition thus. Fine/Near Fine. One of 1500 copies, this copy signed by the illustrator, Henri Matisse. Complete with the six soft-ground etchings and the 20 tipped in preliminary sketches on blue and yellow sheets. Publisher’s brown cloth boards decorated in gilt. Foxing to one plate, but a Fine copy overall. With the publisher’s slipcase (slightly sunned at the spine) in Near Fine condition. A bright, fresh copy.
Joyce’s masterwork of modernism, one of the great books of the 20th century. Though it follows a single day in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom - June 16th, a day which has since become a worldwide holiday - Ulysses’s complex structure is inspired by Homer’s Odyssey. The book’s stream-of-consciousness prose and its experimental nature were groundbreaking, and many of the techniques Joyce uses have since become standard fare. Ulysses took Joyce over seven years to write, and the story of its publication became an epic in itself. The work was first released in serial from 1918 to 1920 in the magazine The Little Review, and published in Paris in a limited first edition in 1922 by Sylvia Beach, the owner of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. It was not, however, released in the UK and United States, where the book had quickly been banned. In fact, copies were smuggled into both countries until a landmark obscenity trial cleared the book for American publication in 1934. Joyce claimed that he “put in so many enigmas and puzzles [into Ulysses] that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.” Time has certainly proven him correct. "Ulysses is the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the twentieth century. It will immortalize its author with the same certainty that Gargantua and Pantagruel immortalized Rabelais, and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ Dostoevsky. It is likely that there is no one writing English today that could parallel Joyce's feat…” (Contemporary NY Times Review, 1922).
The Limited Editions Club was known for its impeccably illustrated volumes of classic texts. Founder George Macy had used such famous artists as Picasso – to illustrate a 1934 version of Lysistrata – and spared no expense for his 1935 edition of Ulysses. Matisse was paid $5,000 and made 26 illustrations for the work. Rumor has it that Matisse did not even read Ulysses itself, but rather based all of his work on the Odyssey. He did, however, stay in contact with Joyce while he worked on the drawings, done in charcoal and pencil. “…the edition represents a rare example of a text in which both author and illustrator occupy an important position in the canon of their respective arts” (James A Knapp, "Joyce and Matisse Bound: Modernist Aesthetics in the Limited Editions Club Ulysses"). Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. (Inventory #: 6661)
Joyce’s masterwork of modernism, one of the great books of the 20th century. Though it follows a single day in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom - June 16th, a day which has since become a worldwide holiday - Ulysses’s complex structure is inspired by Homer’s Odyssey. The book’s stream-of-consciousness prose and its experimental nature were groundbreaking, and many of the techniques Joyce uses have since become standard fare. Ulysses took Joyce over seven years to write, and the story of its publication became an epic in itself. The work was first released in serial from 1918 to 1920 in the magazine The Little Review, and published in Paris in a limited first edition in 1922 by Sylvia Beach, the owner of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore. It was not, however, released in the UK and United States, where the book had quickly been banned. In fact, copies were smuggled into both countries until a landmark obscenity trial cleared the book for American publication in 1934. Joyce claimed that he “put in so many enigmas and puzzles [into Ulysses] that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.” Time has certainly proven him correct. "Ulysses is the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the twentieth century. It will immortalize its author with the same certainty that Gargantua and Pantagruel immortalized Rabelais, and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ Dostoevsky. It is likely that there is no one writing English today that could parallel Joyce's feat…” (Contemporary NY Times Review, 1922).
The Limited Editions Club was known for its impeccably illustrated volumes of classic texts. Founder George Macy had used such famous artists as Picasso – to illustrate a 1934 version of Lysistrata – and spared no expense for his 1935 edition of Ulysses. Matisse was paid $5,000 and made 26 illustrations for the work. Rumor has it that Matisse did not even read Ulysses itself, but rather based all of his work on the Odyssey. He did, however, stay in contact with Joyce while he worked on the drawings, done in charcoal and pencil. “…the edition represents a rare example of a text in which both author and illustrator occupy an important position in the canon of their respective arts” (James A Knapp, "Joyce and Matisse Bound: Modernist Aesthetics in the Limited Editions Club Ulysses"). Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. (Inventory #: 6661)
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