JOYCE, James. Dubliners [A MAJOR JOYCE RARITY]

London: Grant Richards Ltd., 1918. Second English edition, printed in the U.S.A., one of possibly 100 copies only. Crown octavo. pp. 288. Dark red cloth, gilt stamped. A fine copy.
Slocum and Cahoon A8/10, pp. 15-17.
The tangled publication history of Joyce's book is well known. After much hesitation, Grant Richards issued a first edition of about 750 copies in 1914. He transferred about 500 sets of unbound sheets to Huebsch in America, who issued them with a new title page as the first U.S. edition of 1916. A year later, when these had been sold, Huebsch printed fresh sheets in the U.S. and issued them as the second U.S. edition of 1917. The page is slightly smaller and the book runs to 288 pp.
By this time, the first English edition of 1914 was almost sold out. Grant Richards was under pressure from Joyce to issue a second edition, but did not wish to incur the expense of a full edition. He arranged to import a quantity of unbound sheets of the second U.S. edition from Huebsch, and issued them with his own title page in 1918 - as in the present copy.
It is not known how many copies were issued of this second English edition, but Slocum states that Grant Richards bound up & just enough sets to satisfy Joyce. He was aware (in 1952) of only two copies sold in the previous 12 years, one of them in his own collection. It is likely that the edition was no more than 100 copies. It is certainly a major rarity, and few Joyce collections can include a copy.