Tales Told of Shem and Shaun: Three Fragments from Work in Progress

Tales Told of Shem and Shaun by James Joyce. Black Sun Press (Paris: 1929). Copy No. 494 of 500 numbered copies. A fine volume in a Very Good original slipcase.

Printed in letterpress in red and black on cream-white, Holland Van Gelder Zonen laid paper. Text hand-set in the Caslon typeface. Foolscap quarto, 21 x 16.5 cm., top edge trimmed. White paper covers with folding top and side flaps. Presented in the original gold foil-covered slipcase [alternate slipcases incorporating green and red suede paper were also used]. With a Preface by C.K. Ogden, and a portrait of the author by Constantin Brâncuși printed in photogravure with tissue overlay. A Fine, clean and tight volume, in a (later) protective wrapper, housed in a very good, original gold foil-covered slipcase. Minor discoloration to extreme head and tail of cover (as shown in photos). Slipcase base is slightly unhinged at fore-edge; top edge shows a 2cm cello tape repair (as shown in photos). Tales Told of Shem and Shaun was the second finepress book to be published containing fragments of Joyce's 'Work in Progress' toward 'Finnegans Wake'. The Black Sun Press edition contains three fables entitled "The Mookse and the Gripes", "The Muddest Thick That Was Ever Heard Dump" and "The Ondt and the Gracehoper", which would appear in revised form ten years later in three distinct 'books' of 'Finnegans Wake'. This first edition was issued in three limitations: 100 copies on Japanese Vellum signed by the author; 500 copies on Holland Van Gelder Zonen, and 50 copies Hors Commerce. [Slocum and Cahoon, A36]. Pagination: pp. [1–2], blank; p. [3], copyright; p. [4], blank; pp. [5–6], blank; p. [7], half-title; p. [8], blank; p. [9], title-page; p. [10], blank; p. [11], Contents; pp. [12–13], blank; p. [14], [portrait with tissue guard]; pp. I–XV, Preface; p. [16], blank; pp. 1–16, text of THE MOOKSE AND THE GRIPES; pp. 17–43, text of THE MUDDEST THICK THAT WAS EVER HEARD DUMP; p. [44], blank; pp. 45–55, text of THE ONDT AND THE GRACEHOPER; p. [56], blank; p. [57], colophon [number of copy stamped]; pp. [58–64], blank (pp. [61–64] folded under rear wrapper). Harry and Caresse Crosby's Black Sun Press was an exemplary Parisian fine press publishing house which brought together a community of diverse artists to produce deluxe editions capturing the modernist scene in the late twenties and thirties. Originally founded as Éditions Narcisse and a vehicle to print their own works, by mid-1928 The Black Sun Press had become a vital channel between artists and writers and a select group of readers and collectors who appreciated finely bound, hand-set books. Working in Rue Cardinale with Master Printer Roger Lescaret, the press issued limited editions of the first unexpurgated editions of D.H. Lawrence's 'Sun' and 'The Escaped Cock', Kay Boyle's 'Short Stories', Archibald MacLeish's 'Einstein', Eugene Jolas's 'Secession in Astropolis', a volume of 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', and Hart Crane's 'The Bridge', among other works. After Harry Crosby's death in 1929, Caresse continued the work of Black Sun Press, issuing editions of Joyce's 'Collected Poems' (1936), and works by Proust, Faulkner, Hemingway, Crevel, Eluard and Ernst, Bukowski, and Olson.