As part of our new digital initiative, the JJQ is delighted to announce the premiere of a photographic series titled “James Joyce in 100 Objects.” Initially, we’ll use this feature to share images and short descriptions of objects held by the McFarlin Library’s Special Collections at University of Tulsa—one of the world’s great Joyce repositories. As the series grows, we hope to incorporate materials from other libraries, museums, and research institutions around the world. Occasionally, we will include some of these objects in the print issues as well, but this series will live primarily on our website and other digital media, including our brand new Instagram account. So visit our website regularly and follow us on social media as we explore the rich world of
Joycean things.
Our adventure starts with the most iconic of Joycean objects: a copy of the first edition of Ulysses published by Sylvia Beach’s Parisian bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, on February 2, 1922. This one is copy number 10 of the first 100. These books were sold by subscription, printed on handmade Holland paper, and marketed almost exclusively to wealthy collectors and bibliophiles. The English literary critic Cyril Connolly purchased this copy for the then-extravagant price of 350 francs. Joyce personally signed each of these first hundred copies and this one remains in pristine condition, its pages unopened and its blue paper cover looking very much as it did when it arrived from the French printer Maurice Darantière on Joyce’s 40th birthday.
Images courtesy of McFarlin Library’s Department of Special Collections and Mason Whitehorn Powell.