The James Joyce Collection was the first of Spencer’s great Irish collections. Joseph Rubinstein, first head of the Department of Special Collections, purchased the James F. Spoerri collection of James Joyce in 1953 to support the research and teaching of a new generation of scholars at the university. Spoerri was a noted Chicago attorney and book collector. This collection of over 1,000 items is unusually complete in printed material in both book and periodical form, including all first editions of Joyce’s works except five minor items printed for copyright purposes which exist in only one, two, or three copies. It contains nearly all the books and pamphlets devoted entirely to the author and his works, and over two hundred books and periodicals containing critical and biographical material. Particularly rare items in the collection are copies of the two broadsides, “The Holy Office” (ca. 1904-05) and “Gas from a Burner” (1912), the latter bearing in Joyce’s hand, as illustrated here, the story of the destruction of the first (Dublin) edition of Dubliners. Also present is a copy of the first edition of Ulysses in French, signed by Stuart Gilbert, who oversaw the translation, and inscribed by Joyce to his daughter Lucia on the date of issue. There is also a copy of the elusive Pomes Penyeach (Cleveland, 1931).

About the Irish Collections