HAVETH CHILDERS EVERYWHERE. FRAGMENT FROM WORK IN PROGRESS

Paris: Henry Babou and Jack Kahane; New York: Fountain Press, 1930. FIRST EDITION, LIMITED ISSUE. No. 24 OF 100 COPIES ON IRIDESCENT HANDMADE JAPON, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR (plus an additional 500 on paper and 75 writer's copies.). 283 x 191 mm. (11 1/8 x 7 1/2"). 72, [2] pp.
Original white paper covers with printed titling on front and spine, leaves untrimmed and UNOPENED, IN THE ORIGINAL GLASSINE PROTECTIVE WRAPPER. The whole in the original (slightly rubbed) three-panel stiff card folder covered with gilt paper. (Without the original slipcase.) Title printed in green and black, initials and headlines printed in green. Inside front cover of folder with bookplate of John Kobler. Slocum & Cahoon A-41. ◆Corners just slightly bumped, one small faint brown spot to tissue cover, but AN OUTSTANDING COPY, the very fragile and always-torn glassine entirely intact, and the text with no signs of use, most of it never having seen the light of day.

This luxury version of an excerpt from "Finnegans Wake" is printed on especially pleasing handmade paper that glows like a pearl. In his book review for the New York Times (11 January 1931), Herbert Matthews says this fragment is "an attempt to enrich and refashion the English language, and as such is highly stimulating and carries the reader through a form of mental gymnastics which is not without its profit and amusement." However, he admits, "after an honest and patient effort, backed by a previous reading of all of Mr. Joyce's work, 'Haveth Childers Everywhere' still remained absolutely incomprehensible," and he expresses concern that "Mr. Joyce has gone a little further on the path he is hewing for himself toward what seems to be complete linguistic chaos." Perhap our previous owner found it equally rough going, for this copy has obviously never been read..