JOYCE, James.

£675 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Engraved bookplate. Joyce's posthumous bookplate, engraved with the same arms the author used during his lifetime. His father, John Joyce, based the family arms on those of the Joyces of Galway, as described in the 1884 edition of Burke's General Armory. However, Burke described them inaccurately, leading the writer to inherit armorial deviations such as the eagle not being twin headed.In James Joyce and Heraldry (1986), Michael J. O'Shea argues for the significance of heraldry throughout Joyce's works. "The Joyces had no official grant of arms; moreover, no genealogical link has been demonstrated between the armigerous Galway Joyces and the author's Cork ancestors. Nevertheless, John Joyce apparently treated his heraldic legacy with care, and [his son James] was known to have a version of the arms hanging on the wall of his various residences in Paris" (O'Shea, p. 49).It was commissioned from the artist Johnny Friedlaender by La Hune bookshop, Paris, following their sale of the author's library in 1949.

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