Rare books from Houyhnhnm Press & Ithys Press

The first-ever appearance in print of James Joyce's Story for Children, THE CATS OF COPENHAGEN in a special limited edition of 200 copies.
Michael Caine has printed this large-format letterpress edition with virtuoso skill, setting the text in a wondrously expressive array of original, early twentieth-century hand-cut Italian and French founts to capture the imagination of readers young and old. Casey Sorrow has brought to life Joyce's curious 'Københavnere' with ingeniously playful pen-and-ink drawings, specially commissioned, and printed by typographique cliché.
This Numbered issue, printed on Fedrigoni Freelife Vellum, is in double-elephant sextos and hand-bound in one-quarter cloth over marbled boards.
Further details and images are available at http://ithyspress.com

This is a copy of the Lettered Issue of the first edition, thus one of only 26 copies printed on Zerkall Litho (a 210gram, exceptionally fine mouldmade paper, watermarked and with deckled edges) for presentation as a loose-leaf book of ten signatures. The book is wrapped in a coloured paper cover with a letterpress printed label and then presented in a handmade black cloth-covered clamshell box. Traditionally, such loose-leaf formats are especially attractive to printing-arts enthusiasts and to collectors who prefer to rebind their books in a bespoke style to suit a particular library or collection.The First Edition of  FINN'S HOTEL by James Joyce. Edited, arranged and with a preface by Danis Rose, introduced by Seamus Deane, with eleven illustrations by Casey Sorrow. Designed and printed letterpress by Michael Caine for Ithys Press, Dublin. The Preface and Joyce's text have been handset by Caine in Van Dijk, Kis-Janson and various early 20th Century typefaces and the Introduction has been set by… Read More

First Edition; Numbered Issue. One of 140 copies printed on Fedrigoni Vellum (a 190gram, smooth and elegant Italian paper) and handstiched and handbound in hardcovers featuring the red and black letterpress printed paper designed by Elisabeth Hyder and black head- and tail bands. The front cover is impressed with a letterpress printed label. This issue is our 'standard': a collectible, modestly priced finepress first edition. Fine/New.

One of only 10 copies printed on Zerkall Litho for presentation in Artist's Bindings. Designed by the Spanish artist Antonio Veléz Celemín exclusively for the first edition, these copies are beautifully handbound in quarter cloth with exquisite hand marbling on both the book and the slipcase, joining two complementary patterns. To achieve this unique and specially commissioned design, the artist has combined Suminagashi (a Japanese technique dating back to 1055) using only black ink, and the classic western pattern of 'wavy thorns'. These are our 'top copies': they marry the finest in printing art with a rare fine-binding. The First Edition of  FINN'S HOTEL by James Joyce. Edited, arranged and with a preface by Danis Rose, introduced by Seamus Deane, with eleven illustrations by Casey Sorrow. Designed and printed letterpress by Michael Caine for Ithys Press, Dublin. The Preface and Joyce's text have been handset by Caine in Van Dijk, Kis-Janson and various early 20th Century typefaces and the… Read More

First Edition. New. One of 800 copies printed on Arcoprint and hardbound in black Imitlin, stamped in gilt on spine and front cover, and presented in a grey card slipcase with a complementary volume of essays. The first critically emended and completely reset edition of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake since its original publication in 1939. Edited by Danis Rose and John O'Hanlon, designed by Martino Mardersteig, set in the Dante Val typeface, and printed offset and bound by Stamperia Valdonega, Verona for Houyhnhnm Press, Dublin. This First Edition is limited to a Special Issue consisting of 26 Lettered, 150 Numbered and 24 Hors Commerce copies printed on Magnani Mould made paper and hardbound in black calfskin; and a Trade Issue of 800 copies printed on Arcoprint and hardbound in black Imitlin and presented in a grey card slipcase.

First Edition. New. One of 26 Lettered copies. Signed by the printer and the illustrator. The Lettered Deluxe issue, printed on Crisbrook Waterleaf handmade paper, is in loose imperial quartos, with hand-marbled paper-wrappers and presented in a cloth-covered slip-case. The first-ever appearance in print of James Joyce's story for children, The Cats of Copenhagen, in a special edition of 200 copies, limited to 26 Lettered copies, 170 Numbered copies & 4 copies Hors Commerce.Exquisite, surprising, and with a keen, almost anarchic subtext, The Cats of Copenhagen is a slightly younger twin sister to The Cat and the Devil, the only other known example of James Joyce writing a story for young children. Both works, penned within a few weeks of each other in 1936, are in letters posted to his only grandchild, Stephen James Joyce. Michael Caine has printed this large-format letterpress edition with virtuoso skill, setting the text in a wondrously expressive array of original, early twentieth-century hand-cut… Read More

First Edition. New. One of 150 Numbered copies of the Special Issue. Copy No. 38, signed by the Editor and the Printer.Printed on Magnani Mouldmade 130g deckle-edged paper. Royal quarto. Bound in full black calfskin over boards, gilt-stamped on front cover and spine. Presented in a black cloth-covered slipcase with a companion volume of introductory essays hardbound in grey paper over boards. Dublin, Houyhnhnm Press. 2010.The first critically emended and completely reset edition of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake since its original publication in 1939. Edited by Danis Rose and John O'Hanlon, designed by Martino Mardersteig, set in the Dante Val typeface, and printed offset and bound by Stamperia Valdonega, Verona for Houyhnhnm Press, Dublin. This First Edition was limited to a Special Issue consisting of 26 Lettered, 150 Numbered and 24 Hors Commerce copies printed on Magnani Mould made paper and hardbound in black calfskin; and a Trade Issue of 800 copies printed on Arcoprint and hardbound in black… Read More

Tales Told of Shem and Shaun by James Joyce. Black Sun Press (Paris: 1929). Copy No. 494 of 500 numbered copies. A fine volume in a Very Good original slipcase.
Printed in letterpress in red and black on cream-white, Holland Van Gelder Zonen laid paper. Text hand-set in the Caslon typeface. Foolscap quarto, 21 x 16.5 cm., top edge trimmed. White paper covers with folding top and side flaps. Presented in the original gold foil-covered slipcase [alternate slipcases incorporating green and red suede paper were also used]. With a Preface by C.K. Ogden, and a portrait of the author by Constantin Brâncuși printed in photogravure with tissue overlay. A Fine, clean and tight volume, in a (later) protective wrapper, housed in a very good, original gold foil-covered slipcase. Minor discoloration to extreme head and tail of cover (as shown in photos). Slipcase base is slightly unhinged at fore-edge; top edge shows a 2cm cello tape repair (as shown in photos). Tales Told of Shem and Shaun was the second… Read More

ULYSSES, JAMES JAMES. (London: Folio Society, 2017). NEW. First Edition. Illustrated and introduced by John Vernon Lord. Edited and introduced by Danis Rose and John O'Hanlon. In pristine condition in publisher's original shrinkwrap. Hardbound in black buckram blocked and printed in green with a design by the illustrator, with leather inset label stamped in silver to spine. Typeset in Dante, printed on Abbey Pure cream-white paper, head silvered. Frontispiece and 18 illustrations by John Vernon Lord in colour and black & white. Presented in publisher's slipcase of complementary design by the illustrator. The text of this critically edited edition is based on the typescripts, proofs, and lifetime corrections of the author, ie., the text of 'Ulysses' as submitted by Joyce to his publishers: first, to the Little Review (New York) and second, to Shakespeare & Company (Paris). For his illustrations to this edition, John Vernon Lord won the 2018 'Victoria &Albert; Illustration Award for Book Illustration'… Read More

First Edition. Copy #372 of 800 Numbered copies. Letterpress printed in navy italics on white wove paper, with a frontispiece portrait of the author by Augustus John. Foolscap octavo. Bound in cream-white boards decoratively stamped in blue, with blue satin place-marker, issued in a glassine wrapper. A Near Fine volume in a Good original glassine wrapper. Wrapper is age-toned and chipped at head and tail, with light tanning to the exposed portion of the spine. This copy belonged to the Arthur Conan Doyle scholar, John Bennett Shaw (and his bookplate is included but unattached).
A lovely example of James Joyce's collaboration with the small, artisan presses at work in the 1920s and 30s.
The Black Sun Press was an exemplary Parisian fine press publishing house which brought together a community of diverse artists to produce deluxe, hand-set editions capturing the modernist scene in the late twenties and thirties. Originally founded as Éditions Narcisse, the Black Sun Press issued limited editions of… Read More

An Elucidation by Gertrude Stein. Offprint from: transition, no. 1. [Paris:] transition, April 1927. 8° (195 x 144mm).
First edition, in original buff-coloured stapled yapped wrappers. 16pp. Minor crimping to top fore-edge yapped wrappers. Pages uncut. Usual age-toning. A Very Good copy of this fragile, ephemeral publication.
This scarce offprint was issued to correct the mis-printings to the text of the article that had just appeared in the first issue of the magazine "transition." (Wilson A10). Stein insisted on the printing of this supplementary pamphlet, but only enough copies to supply subscribers were printed; these were laid-in to copies of the first printing of the magazine issue. The pamphlet begins with an apology by Elliot Paul, the co-editor of "transition", stating: "Since, unfortunately, the version of Miss Gertrude Stein's 'An elucidation' printed in the April number of Transition, while containing the correct words, presented them in the wrong order (through an inadvertence in the… Read More

New York: Walter V. McKee, 1929. First edition, first printing. Octavo (19 x 13cm). xii, 356pp. Bound in black cloth and decorative boards with a design by Albert Schiller, spine stamped in red, issued with a dust-jacket designed by Irving Politzer. A Near Fine copy in a Very Good+, unclipped dust-jacket. Light shelf-wear and soiling to extremities; shallow chipping to head and tail of wrapper.
This historically significant anthology gathers experimental works from the first thirteen issues of "transition" magazine, one of the most influential little magazines of the 1920s. Founded by Eugene Jolas, Maria Jolas, and Elliott Paul, "transition" advocated the "metamorphosis of reality" through artistic expression and provided a platform for a new internationalist modernism. Included here as "A Muster from 'Work in Progress'," are seven excerpts of drafts for James Joyce's yet unnamed "Finnegans Wake" (textual excerpts which were revised for this printing and again for publication in 1939).

Complete set of the five issues of "Two Worlds" magazine in which five installments of James Joyce's "Work in Progress" appeared between September 1925 and September 1926. Overall, a Very Good set of a rare and ephemeral publication.
Vols. 1-4 in the original black card slipcases; Vol. 5 in an mylar wrapper. Volumes 1-4 are in very good or better condition; Volume 5 (in the larger format, not issued in a slipcase) has a clean and tight interior but a soiled cover, with a crease to the lower front corner which has been backed with archival repair tissue on the verso. Slipcases for Vols. 2-4 very good with some rubbing; slipcase for Vol. 1 is lacking head piece. Please see photographs.
This is the first American publication of fragments of Finnegans Wake, consisting of:September 1925, pp. 45-54: (FW I.5, pp.104-125);December 1925, pp. 111-114: (FW I.2 section 1, pp.30-34);March 1926, pp. 347-360: (FW I.8, pp.196-216);June 1926, pp. 545-560: (FW I.7, pp.169-195);September 1926, pp. 35-40: (FW II.4, pp.383-99).

Chatto & Windus, London, 1930. First Edition (first printing). 8vo. xx, 154pp. Lemon-yellow cloth over boards, stamped in blue on cover and spine, in original dust-jacket. Forewords by Ford Madox Ford and Glenn Hughes, with contributions by Richard Aldington, John Cournos, H.D., John Gould Fletcher, F.S.Flint, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, D.H.Lawrence, and William Carlos Williams. The contribution by Joyce consists of "Tales Told of Shem and Shaun" (FW p. 417 line 24 to p. 419 line 10).
A very good and complete copy of an uncommon book. In original wrappers (tanning to spine panel with chip to the crown). Some foxing to top-and fore-edges of text block and binding as common to this publication; minor bumps and soiling to head and tail of spine.

EXILES: A PLAY IN THREE ACTS, James Joyce. (London: Egoist Press, 1921). The second English edition of Exiles, published The Egoist Press from newly set type (first edition, thus), incorporating corrections from the Grant Richards and BW Huebsch first editions. One of only 500 bound copies in an issue of 1,000 sheets (with the remaining sets of sheets handed over to Jonathan Cape in 1924). Bound in dark green cloth over boards, blind-stamped on cover and gilt stamped on spine. A Very Good+ copy of a rare edition. No dust jacket. Spine slightly tanned and gilt rubbed; slight fraying to crown.
Joyce's only work for theatre, written between the spring 1914 and autumn 1915, was first published in 1918 in simultaneous editions by Grant Richards (London) and BW Huebsch (New York). In the interim, Joyce, with help of Ezra Pound, sought but failed to arrange a performance of the play. Its first production was in German translation (Verbannte) in Munich in 1919; its first performance in English was at The… Read More