Epiphanies. Interpreted by Susan Weil and Marjorie Van Dyke

New York: Vincent FitzGerald & Company, 1987. Artist's book, one of 65 copies only, 50 in the edition for sale and 15 Artist's Proofs, all on Moulin du Gue paper and Japanese papers, with 62 etchings, employing over 150 plates, original watercolors, collage and hand cutting, signed by the artists, Susan Weil and Marjorie Van Dyke on the stunning colophon page. Collage by Vincent FitzGerald and Zahra Partovi, etchings printed by Marjorie Van Dyke assisted by Maria Luisa Rojo at the Printmaking Workshop; lithographs editioned by Marjorie Van Dyke with Rhae Burden, calligraphy by Jerry Kelly, letterpress by Dan Keleher and Bruce Chandler at Wild Carrot Letterpress in 40 colors with type set by Dan Carr and Julia Ferrari at the Golgonooza Letter Foundry. Page size: 12 x 14 inches; 94 leaves, 3 of which are double folds, one printed page loose as insert (Dreams section), two fold-out images (Death section). Bound: loose as issued in original wrappers in hand-made box by David Bourbeau at The Thistle Bindery in Japanese hand-made silk woven for this box, with incised line of Japanese tea paper showing profile of Joyce, this is in fine condition with absolutely no sunning of box spine, no offsetting from silver lining of box to titlepage, and no weakening of sewn threads in "Death" sequence, problem which often occur,
Joyce's EPIPHANIES, the writings in his early notebooks that are the basis for his great works, had not been previously published. The EPIPHANIES are astonishing fragments of dreams, overheard conversations, and particles of experiences. In making the book, the artists and publisher divided THE EPIPHANIES into four sections: "Dreams," "Games," "Planes," and "Death." Each Epiphany is printed on a separate page with the page number printed in a different color. The four printed Introductions to the image sections each have printed on them, in the same color as the actual page number, all the page numbers that relate to that image section. Marjorie Van Dyke developed the images for the dreams and the games sections; Susan Weil developed the planes and death sections. These paragraphs and accompanying images take the reader / viewer through a series of Joyce's experiences as a boy, seeing and overhearing the world around him. Selected by the Independent Curators for the Franklin Furnace exhibition "Contemporary Illustrated Books" as one of the 50 best illustrated books from 1966-1988, it was also featured in the Boston Athenaeum exhibition, "Artists of the Book, 1988: A Facet of Modernism." This important book was sold out within six months of publication and is now infrequently available on the secondary market. It is hard to overstate the importance of this book in contemporary book arts. It is one of the first, if not the first, to entice the reader / viewer with texts and images that they must manipulate to fully see - something now a relatively common occurrence in book arts.