James Joyce's readers
February 2 was the anniversary of James Joyce’s birth (in 1882). A recent talk about the design history of Ulysses reminded me of this seven-minute selection of Joyceans brandishing their copies of the novel (sorry: the novel, I guess, to them), compiled for its centenary. Here are plenty of copies in the great read-to-bits tradition – also a copy in which somebody’s highlighted the dirty bits in the Penelope episode.
My own copy is the Penguin paperback edition of 1969, bought some time ago for £3; perhaps disappointingly, it’s free of fervid annotations and the spine hasn’t been ripped apart in a frenzy of close reading. The same could be said of my copies of Joyce’s other books, I’m afraid, although I did only invest in the smart Faber edition of his Poems and Shorter Writings last year, and there are a few curios in there to which I’ve turned more than once, so . . . give me time.
ICYMI: The new Antiquates catalogue is all about the Distressed Mind. Justin Croft’s recent acquisitions include Maria Edgeworth’s Tales of Fashionable Life (1809), the Golden Cockerel Canterbury Tales (1929–31) and an “amulet against sorcery, plague and natural disasters”. Those who think they know their Romantic poetry will want to test their knowledge against Arthur Freeman’s new catalogue, Unusual Poetry in English of the Romantic Era (I readily confess to having no idea about the existence of works such as The Splendid Village, The Eo-Nauts, or the Spirit of Delusion and Prison Pindarics).