A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. by JOYCE, James - 1917

London: Egoist Press,, 1917. Octavo (180 x 123 mm). Contemporary green quarter calf, titles to spine in gilt, raised bands to spine, green and gilt marbled paper sides, top edge gilt, others untrimmed, pale green book marker, marbled endpapers. Spine faded, slight rubbing to extremities, faint toning to margins, short closed tear to fore edge of first blank; a very good copy indeed. First edition to be printed in the UK, the so-called second edition, preceded by the English issue of the US edition. Joyce's first novel was originally published in book form by Huebsch in New York in 1916. Due at least in part to the hostile reaction to its original serialization in The Egoist (from February 1914 to September 1915) no English printer would print the book for fear of prosecution under the obscenity laws. Harriet Shaw Weaver, the proprietor of the Egoist Press, therefore purchased and bound "not more than 750" sets of the US sheets, and issued them under the Egoist imprint. She then issued the present edition using sheets printed in the UK.