Finnegans Wake

London: Faber and Faber, 1939. First trade edition. Near Fine/Very Good +. A Near Fine copy of the book in Very Good+ dust jacket. Contemporary owner's name and bookplate on the front endpapers, some foxing to the closed text-block and to the early and late leaves. Price-clipped dust jacket with the yellow titling faded, minor chips and tears, mostly a the extremities, and some smudges to the jacket panels.

Among the most influential and complex Modernist works, Finnegans Wake "blends the reality of life with a dream world. The motive of the novel, inspired by the 18th century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico, is that history is cyclical...the novel's plot is nearly as complex as the linguistic tactics deployed by Joyce, who combined a number of languages and utilized complex sonic implications to create an atmosphere of wordplay and hidden meaning throughout the entirety of Finnegans Wake" (Britannica). A natural progression from his earlier masterpiece Ulysses, Finnegans Wake shows Joyce pressing his ability to weave together numerous languages, cultural mythologies, and national literatures to defy boundaries and binaries we so often lean on to understand the world. Near Fine in Very Good + dust jacket.