Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Faber & Faber, London, 1939. First edition, octavo, pp. 628. Original red cloth binding with titles in gilt, yellow publisher's cardboard slipcase. Limited issue, one of 425 numbered, signed copies. 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 he forced it to accept a new area of being and a new language. What is ultimately most impressive is the sureness with which he in the midst of such technical accomplishments achieved his special mixture of attachment and detachment, of gaiety and lugubriousness. He was no saturnine artificer contriving devices, but one of life's celebrants in bad circumstances cracking good jokes, foisting upon ennuis and miseries his comic vision.