POMES PENYEACH | BY | JAMES JOYCE | SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY | PARIS | 1927

Although Beach's most famous publishing endeavor is Ulysses, she did publish a few other Joyce-related items, such as Joyce's second collection of poems, Pomes Penyeach. Eight of the thirteen poems in the collection were written in Trieste between 1912 and 1915, one was written in Dublin in 1904, and the others after 1915 in both Zürich and Paris. As with Ulysses, Joyce was very particular about the color of the cover: he wanted it to be apple-green. Numerous editions were made of this collection, including a deluxe limited edition (a holograph facsimile) in 1932 with lettrines by Lucia Joyce, published by the Obelisk Press. The unopened copy is one of three copies of the first test printing Beach made. The opened copy is a Press Copy.

JAMES JOYCE | ULYSSES, | Frs. 125 | POMES PENYEACH, | [in ink:] One Shilling | [in ink:] Frs. 6,50 | Shakespeare and Company | Sylvia Beach | PUBLISHERS | 12, RUE DE L'ODƒON, 12 | PARIS - VI^e | R.C. Seine N¡ 284.482 Tél. Littré 33.76

ULYSSES | (pp. 136-137) | Shakespeare and Company | 12, rue de l'Odéon | PARIS

In 1924 a recording was made of Joyce reading an excerpt from the "Aeolus" episode. The recording is only on the first side. At this time, such a production was quite novel and unusual. Only twenty copies of the record were made for Beach to sell at Shakespeare and Company. This one is inscribed "James Joyce | Paris | 27 November 1924."

As with all his works, Joyce was meticulous about how the phonograph label for the Ulysses recording (item 81) should be formatted.

83. Joyce seated, photograph by Ruth Asch, Paris, 1929.

84. Our Exagmination Round His Factification For Incamination Of Work In Progress, 1929.

OUR EXAGMINATION | ROUND HIS FACTIFICATION | FOR INCAMINATION | OF WORK IN PROGRESS | BY | SAMUEL BECKETT, MARCEL BRION, FRANK BUDGEN, | STUART GILBERT, EUGENE JOLAS, VICTOR LLONA, | ROBERT McALMON, THOMAS McGREEVY, | ELLIOT PAUL, JOHN RODKER, ROBERT SAGE, | WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS | with | LETTERS OF PROTEST | BY | G. V. L. SLINGSBY AND VLADIMIR DIXON. | SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY | SYLVIA BEACH | 12, RUE DE L'ODƒON — PARIS | [rule] | MCMXXIX

Starting in 1924, installments of Joyce's new work, Finnegans Wake, began appearing in a variety of literary journals under the title "Work in Progress" (Joyce kept the title secret until its final publication in 1939). In 1926, the journal transition (item 108, case XIII) became the principle venue for Joyce's new work. Many readers of "Work in Progress" were baffled by what Joyce was doing. In response to his readers' criticism and confusion, Joyce actively set about publishing a collection of essays that would answer his critics. This, the first book of criticism on the Wake, was published by Beach at Shakespeare and Company. The title appears in the Wake at 497.02-3. Several of the essays had already appeared in transition but some were new. The volume of twelve essays includes Samuel Beckett's first published piece "Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce" (the title came from Joyce) and essays by Gilbert, Rodker, William Carlos Williams, Eugene Jolas, and others. Also included are two comic "letters of protest," one by G.V.L Slingsby and the other by Vladimir Dixon (item 85).

On display is copy #67, one of 96 numbered copies printed on Vergé D'Arches. It is inscribed by Beach to Constantine Stafford.

Dixon's letter of protest is a humorous pastiche of Wakean style. He mailed his letter to Joyce care of Sylvia Beach and she decided to include it in the collection of essays on Joyce's "Work in Progress" she was about to publish (item 84). Beach assumed that Dixon was none other than Joyce himself (a supposition shared by Stuart Gilbert and Richard Ellmann). [57] However, Vladimir Dixon was a real person; born in Russia in 1900, he graduated from M.I.T. in 1921 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. He moved to Paris in 1923 and published some poetry and essays. He died in December 1929 without ever having met Joyce. [58]