I’ve recently been re-reading Joyce’s Ulysses so this item caught my eye while I was trawling eBay looking for toast burnt by the stigmata and Britney Spears’ bra… First edition, 11th printing May 1930, the last printing of the legendary first edition of Ulysses, published by Shakespeare & Company. Joyce’s signature is laid in on a separate sheet of paper. Looks pretty cool although I’m a little bit sketched out by the fact that this same seller has a Catcher in the Rye that also contains a laid-in slip of paper with Salinger’s signature and a Steinbeck with signed slip of paper. Oh well, they’ve got near perfect feedback so what do I know?
If you’ve got about two grand, this could be a grand addition to your Joyce collection.
Before I’d get something like that I’d like to have a way to compare the signature with other James Joyce signed items to verify its authenticity.
I do collect signed editions of books and approached a guy who was running a rare book collecting booth at The Northwest Bookfest a few years ago and he told me there’s almost no way to verify the authenticity of signed editions.
For $2,000.00, I’d have to.
Take Care
Have Fun
JD
I don’t consider a book “signed” unless the signature is on the book itself. A tipped in piece of paper with a signature does not a signed edition make.
Looking through his offerings, he seems to make a practice of selling “signed” books that are really just books with a snippet of autographed paper. That’s fine, mind you, and if he can make a bit extra on the price of a book by combining the book with a piece of paper with the writer’s signature, more power to him. He’s quite upfront about what he’s selling.