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First edition, first printing of A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, published by Harcourt, Brace and Company in 1944.
Campbell’s first published book and one of the foundational early guides to James Joyce’s famously difficult Finnegans Wake. Campbell and Robinson spent years working through Joyce’s text, producing both an overview of its structure and an extended guide to its characters, motifs, narrative patterns, language, and cyclical conception of history.
Published only five years after Finnegans Wake itself, A Skeleton Key became an important early attempt to make Joyce’s final work navigable to readers. This first edition was produced during World War II under government restrictions on paper and other materials, explicitly noted on the copyright page.
An appealing association of two major twentieth-century figures: an early James Joyce critical study that was also the first book of Joseph Campbell, who would later become an influential writer on mythology and comparative religion.
Retains its original illustrated dust jacket.
Details
Title: A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake
Authors: Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson
Place: New York
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace and Company
Date: 1944
Edition/Issue: First edition, first printing
Format/Binding: Hardcover in green cloth with gilt spine lettering; original printed dust jacket
Pagination: xiii, 365 pages
Dimensions: Approximately 5 1/2 × 8 1/4 inches
Condition
Good to very good book in a fair original dust jacket. Green cloth binding remains attractive, with light rubbing and shelf wear and minor wear at corners and spine ends. Gilt spine lettering remains bright and legible. Pages show expected age toning associated with the wartime paper stock. Binding is sound.
Interior is generally clean, with scattered small incidental marks and handling marks. Front free endpaper bears a small penciled “X” and “3.50.” No other notes or annotations observed.
Original dust jacket is heavily worn but remains present and substantially complete. Jacket shows overall toning and rubbing, considerable edge wear and creasing, and chips and losses concentrated along the upper edge and at the head of the spine. Smaller losses and wear are present at corners and folds. Front and rear printed panels remain substantially complete and legible. Please review photographs closely for jacket condition.
Topic
Joseph Campbell; James Joyce; Finnegans Wake; Henry Morton Robinson; Modernism; Irish Literature; Literary Criticism; Mythology; Comparative Mythology
