ULYSSES by Joyce James - January 1924

Paris: Shakespeare and Co., January 1924. First Edition, the fourth printing. AN IMPORTANT AND RARE COPY INSCRIBED BY JOYCE on a preliminary blank to the binding ‘To A.K. Griggs / James Joyce / Paris/ 16.iv [1]934’ With 4 pp. of “Ulysses Additional Corrections” bound in at the end. 8vo, in a French binding of wine-red cloth, the spine with black morocco lettering label gilt, and with a fine slipcase, marbled endleaves, and with the original white wrappers printed in blue bound in. 736 pp. A fine copy, the paper lightly browned overall as is usual with this printing, some marginal tears or chips, primarily at the prelims. THE MOST IMPORTANT NOVEL OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. A RARE AND IMPORTANT INSCRIBED COPY OF JOYCE’S MASTERWORK. ULYSSES can be viewed as the pinnacle of the Modernist movement, and its impact on all subsequent western literature is unmistakable. Such writers as Virginia Woolf, John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, Samuel Beckett, Malcolm Lowry, and Anthony Burgess have all paid tribute, consciously or unconsciously, to Joyce's influence. Burgess as well pronounced it the greatest single work in the English literature of the last century, and he is not alone in that opinion.
According to James Spoerri, "This fortunate combination of printer and publisher resulted in the appearance of ULYSSES as a book whose physical aspect is particularly suited to its content. It is a fat and inviting volume, the blue and white of its covers subtly evocative of the Greece whose epic it so closely parallels" (quoted in the catalogue for the Garden Sale, Sotheby's 1989, first edition, first issue).
"Universally hailed as the most influential work of modern times" (Grolier Joyce 69). After working for seven years on Ulysses, Joyce, desperate to find a publisher, turned to Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Company in Paris. "Within a month of the publication, the first printing of Ulysses was practically sold out, and within a year Joyce had become a well-known literary figure. Ulysses was explosive in its impact on the literary world of 1922... Then began the great game of smuggling the edition into countries where it was forbidden, especially England and the United States. The contraband article was transported across the seas and national borders in all sorts of cunning ways..." (de Grazia, 27).
Arthur Kingsland Griggs, the recipient of this copy of ULYSSES, inscribed by Joyce, lived from 1891-1934. He was editor and translator of Léon Daudet’s MEMOIRS (1925) and the MEMOIRS OF QUEEN HORTENSE (1928). He also published MY PARIS, AN ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN PARIS FROM THE WORKS OF CONTEMPORARY FRENCH WRITERS (1932) and wrote a popular (and often reprinted) guidebook, PARIS FOR EVERYMAN - HER PRESENT, HER PAST & HER ENVIRONS (1926).
COPIES OF ULYSSES INSCRIBED BY JOYCE ARE TRULY RARE. THIS IS A HANDSOME AND DESIRABLE COPY OF A CORNERSTONE LITERARY WORK.