A fascinating collection of inscribed and presentation copies of literary first editions, including Irish authors, is being offered for sale in the US.
Glenn Horowitz booksellers in New York is selling the collection of Prof Stanley Wertheim, professor of English at William Paterson University, who has been a book collector for some 35 years.
Irish authors in the collection include James Joyce, Sean O'Casey, Liam O'Flaherty, George Bernard Shaw and William Butler Yeats.
The collection includes works by W.H. Auden, Robert Browning, Raymond Chandler, Joseph Conrad, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, E.M. Forster, Robert Frost, William Golding and Graham Greene. Other authors include Ernest Hemingway, Henry James, W. Somerset Maugham, D.H. Lawrence, Eugene O'Neill, John Osborne, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John Steinbeck, Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, H.G. Wells and Walt Whitman. A first edition of William Butler Yeats's Responsibilities and Other Poems (London, Macmillan, 1916), presented to Lady Gregory is on offer for $30,000 (€32,150).
Inscribed "Lady Gregory from WB Yeats October 1916", it includes four corrections made by Lady Gregory.
A line is added to An Appointment on page 78: Nor heavy knitting of the brow;
"An" is deleted in line eight of The Fascination of what's difficult on page 99;
In A Coat, the word "eye" is changed to "eyes";
In The Dolls on page 78, the word "bawls" replaces "balls".
A first edition, 10th and penultimate printing of James Joyce's Ulysses (Paris: Shakespeare and company, 1928), has a price tag of $20,000. Inscribed "To Isaac K. Friedman James Joyce", the final printing was issued in May 1930.
Sean O'Casey's I Knock At The Door: Swift glances back at things that made me (London: Macmillan, 1939), inscribed "To G.B.S. & Mrs Charlotte Shaw from Sean O'Casey with deep affection. Devon. 1939", costs $12,500.
Meanwhile, a first edition copy of O'Casey's The Flying Wasp (London: Macmillan, 1937), is listed at $1,500. It is inscribed "To Charles & Evelyn Cochran, with affectionate regards, from Sean O'Casey. London. 1937".
One of 2,000 copies issued, O'Casey referred to The Flying Wasp in a letter as "an onslaught on the critics here . . . an effort to confound them out of the words of their own mouths".
Liam O'Flaherty's The Informer (London: Cape, 1925), inscribed "To Leslie Chandy From Liam O'Flaherty" is priced at $5,000.
A first English edition of George Bernard Shaw's John Bull's Other Island And Major Barbara: Also How He Lied To Her Husband (London, Constable, 1907), costs $3,500. With green cloth and stamped in gilt, it is inscribed "To Stewart D. Headlam from G. Bernard Shaw".
Glenn Horowitz also has an impressive collection of James Joyce books and manuscripts for sale. An unopened first edition of Ulysses (Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922, copy three of 100), has a list price of $135,000. It is inscribed "To Margaret Anderson James Joyce Paris 13 February 1922".
A first edition presentation copy of Dubliners (London: Grant Richards, 1914), is on offer for $65,000. It is inscribed "To Crosby Gaige James Joyce Paris 25.v.28". This was five months before Gaige published Anna Livia Plurabelle, a section of Finnegans Wake. Another copy of the same edition of Dubliners is listed at $45,000.
A first edition of W.B. Yeats's John Sherman and Dhoya (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1891), which is signed by Yeats and James Joyce, is listed at $10,000. Yeats's third book, it is signed by Yeats on the title page: "W.B. Yeats" and signed twice by Joyce, once on the front wrapper and again on the half title: "Jas A. Joyce".
Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, Inc. 19 East 76th Street, New York, NY 10021. Telephone: 001 212 327 3538. Fax: 001 212 327 3542.
jmarms@irish-times.ie
