Finnegans Wake

Having completed Ulysses, Joyce believed he had finished the work of his life. But on 10 March 1923 he began a new text, initially called Work in Progress, an even more ambitious undertaking, of which he completed the first two parts by 1926. These were serialized by Eugene and Maria Jolas in their magazine Transition. It was in their home that, seventeen years after beginning it, Joyce finally announced the definitive title of his book, which would ultimately comprise seventeen chapters: Finnegans Wake was published in volume form on 4 May 1939.

Notoriously difficult, often deemed unreadable and untranslatable, Finnegans Wake is nonetheless regarded as a monument of twentieth-century literature. Although described as “translated from the English,” the book in fact blends several languages to such a degree that some scholars argue it has no single source language. A first, incomplete and imperfect translation appeared in 1962; it was not until Philippe Lavergne’s 1982 version that a complete French translation became available.

A fine copy in wrappers.