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VI.J.4.

*VI.J.4: "Work in Progress"/Finnegans Wake Miscellaneous Manuscript: Holograph Faircopy of "‘s alphabet of 29 letters" for transition 6/Finnegans Wake I.6(1926)

Material Description and Collation

The manuscript consists of a sheet of high quality laid paper, with a watermark of an image of a mailed arm & battle-axe and below it: "FABRIQUÉ EN ÉCOSSE". Joyce used the sheet horizontally, with the perforated edge on the left hand side e. The manuscript is in Joyce’s hand in lead pencil; the verso is blank. The manuscript is the same kind of paper as MSS VI.I.1, I.2, I.30, and I.42, with the same perforations on one side; all were probably torn from the same or similar tablets or blocks of sheets.

Title

The manuscript is headed "‘s alphabet of 29 letters (Izzy is born | on last day of February of a leap year)".

Contents

The manuscript is an extradraft faircopy version of Joyce’s text on Finnegans Wake notebook MS VI.B.19, p. [12] that Joyce added on the first copy of the first set of galley proofs of transition 6 (BL MS 46473, f. 204). This manuscript was not sent to the printer but may have been a gift for Beach.

Measurements

The manuscript measures 13.0 x 19.0 cm.

Dating

Joyce wrote this manuscript in early August 1927.

Publication

This manuscript has not been reproduced.

Publication

Sylvia Beach acknowledges the gift of this manuscript in a letter to Joyce, dated 24 November 1926 (Jahnke Bequest, Zurich James Joyce Foundation).