A WELL-PRESERVED copy of James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysseshas sold for £275,000 (€314,000), the highest price recorded for a 20th-century first edition.
The good condition and previously lost edition of the book, bought surreptitiously in a Manhattan bookshop despite being banned in the US, was sold to a private buyer in London yesterday.
The dealer who made the sale, Pom Harrington, said the book was one of only four copies of that first-edition print run, all signed by Joyce, that had been unaccounted for.
"In terms of collectability, Ulyssesis considered to be the number one 20th-century book. This is such a find and it is in such fabulous, pristine condition."
Throughout the 1920s, the book was banned in the UK and the US and any import or sale involved a degree of subterfuge.
This copy was sold at the subversive Manhattan bookshop Sunwise Turn, where patrons could also pick up Peruvian fabrics or the mystic teachings of Gurdjieff. It was bought by a Mrs Hewitt Morgan and passed down through the family, stored in its original box. – (Guardian)