“HUMPTYDUMP DUBLIN SQUEAKS THROUGH HIS NORSE HUMPTYDUMP DUBLIN HATH A HORRIBLE VORSE AND WITH ALL HIS KINKS ENGLISH PLUS HIS IRISMANX BROGUES HUMPTYDUMP DUBLIN’S GRANDADA OF ALL ROGUES”: BEAUTIFUL FIRST EDITION OF JOYCE’S HAVETH CHILDERS EVERYWHERE, ONE OF ONLY 100 SIGNED COPIES

JOYCE, James. Haveth Childers Everywhere. Fragment from Work in Progress. Paris: Henry Babou and Jack Kahane; New York: Fountain Press, 1930. Slim folio, original printed paper wraps, uncut and unopened, original glassine, original gilt chemise and green cardboard slipcase. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box. $17,500.

First edition, number 50 of only 100 signed copies on “Imperial Hand-Made Iridescent Japan” paper, out of a total edition of 685 copies. A stunning copy.

This is one of several fragments from Work in Progress (published in 1939 as Finnegans Wake) that Joyce issued to raise money while working on the mammoth project. One of the publishers, Jack Kahane, who idolized Joyce, had originally asked Sylvia Beach to allow him to take over publication of Ulysses. Instead, she introduced Kahane to Joyce, who then agreed to let him publish Haveth Childers Everywhere. The effort nearly ruined Kahane, and only by selling the American rights to the work were he and co-publisher Henry Babou able to save themselves from bankruptcy. When Faber and Faber was preparing the first London editions of Anna Livia Plurabelle and Haveth Childers Everywhere (1930 and 1931 respectively), "Joyce wrote rhymes for the 'blurb' on the dust jacket. [The Haveth Childers verse is quoted in this description headline]… He was a little annoyed when the publicity department… used them only on a mimeographed publicity release, to which they prefixed a note: 'The Sales department, puzzled as such departments are wont to be, have sought some light on the two James Joyce contributions to Criterion Miscellany. Below the explanations offered are passed on that you may be able to derive similar enlightenment" (Ellmann, 617n). Slocum and Cahoon A41.

A beautiful, fine copy, in a slightly worn slipcase.