Chamber Music.

Joyce, James

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London: Elkin Matthews, 1918. 16mo. (18)ff. Second edition. With a label inside the rear cover from Shakespeare and Company, the famed bookshop and literary meeting place founded by Sylvia Beach. Beach was a strong supporter of Joyce and the first publisher of Ulysses. Chamber Music, Joyce's first book, was published only through the considerable efforts of Arthur Symons, whom he had met through Yeats in 1902. Symons not only moved heaven and earth to find him a publisher who wouldn't require a subsidy, but he also wrote an extremely favorable review of the book in the Nation. Bound in printed gray laid paper wrappers, which show some slight edgewear. A spot on the front cover has some faint residue from a previous label; else fine. Housed in a folding blue cloth chemise and a matching protective slipcase. With the book label of John Haven Ferguson, poet and former U.S. ambassador to Morocco. (Item ID: 23091)