posted on 23 Sep 2024

One for the collectors: Ulysses by James Joyce

I’m a huge admirer of James Joyce’s great novel, Ulysses and, because I was long ago incurably bitten by the collectors’ bug, I go out of my way to gather up as many different copies of the novel as I can find. Now, that doesn’t mean any old edition or tatty paperback I might stumble on – what I want are ones with some design panache, editions that do justice to the magnificent text.

And, of course, if you’re a collector of books you will almost certainly be aware that the combination of great book design and a great classic of Modernist literature are ingredients that add up to big prices. Needless to say, I would love to have one of the Sylvia Beach sponsored first editions that came out of Shakespeare & Co. but I don’t happen to have the odd £100,000 kicking around looking for a home, so I need to content myself with those that fall in the scope of my modest means.

As well as getting our hands on a volume that with grace our shelves for the coming years, collectors also love a bargain and dropping on one inadvertently gives an intense feeling of satisfaction. So, are there any copies of Ulysses out there that you might consider hidden bargains? Well, I’d like to offer you this one which seems to me to sell for remarkably low prices – well under £30 (although you may also have to foot the postage costs from the USA).

The book in question was published in New York by Book-of-the-Month Club in 1982 and has a ‘new foreword’ by the novelist and Joyce scholar, Anthony Burgess. Burgess wrote what many think is the very best introduction to the work of Joyce called ‘Here Comes Everybody’ which was published in paperback by Faber in 1965 and has become quite collectable in its own right – so his foreword to this edition is not a negligible addition.

The book I’m commending to you here is hardback, with a nicely sewn spine bound in dark blue cloth and boards that are dressed in a cream hessian embossed on the front with the title of the book in a sort of cartouche. Author and title are lettered on the spine in gold. As if this is not enough, the whole is housed in a wonderful slipcase that is fully wrapped around by a painting entitled Dublin, June 16th, 1904 (the day on which the action of Ulysses takes place).

This sumptuous cover, as with the illustrations inside, are provided by Susan Stillman who The Saatchi Art website describes in this way:

“A life-long artist/educator, Stillman has been a faculty member at Parsons School of Design since 1983.
She began her career as an Illustrator and her work has been published in hundreds of magazines, newspapers, posters and books. Her clients have included The New York Times, New York Magazine, Esquire, Beth Israel Medical Center, Conde Nast, Hearst Publications, and numerous others. Stillman was chosen to illustrate a special centennial edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, for Book of the Month Club, and illustrated a children’s book, Windsongs and Rainbows, for Simon and Schuster.”

She also provides a further dozen full-page illustrations in predominantly sepia tones that help lift the book to another level. I’m aware that there is some controversy amongst Joyce lovers about whether the book should ever be illustrated – Joyce himself apparently was against it – but I personally love to see how talented illustrators tackle the task. For my money, Stillman gets it right – but I guess that will be a matter of taste.

But, I hear you say, isn’t this a book club edition and don’t collectors think book club editions are the Devil’s work? Generally speaking this is true but unlike many other book club editions, BMC maintained high production standards as they built a clientele who would take a specified number of selected titles for an annual subscription fee. From its inception in the US in 1926 through to the late 1970s it became something of a literary institution and many authors used their selection to be a book of the month as a way of positively promoting their work. The club was purchased in 1977 by Time Inc. and merged with Warner in 1989 – so it was in this window that Ulysses was commissioned and produced.

Whether you’re interested in the history or not, there’s no denying this is a splendid edition and, I would argue, still massively undervalued for what it is. 

Do yourself a favour, get one while they’re unaccountable still cheap and still available.

 

Terry Potter

September 2024