1920 James Joyce-signed Book
GUEST: My husband and I are big readers, and we both come from families that love books.
And we have inherited over the years hundreds of books, maybe thousands.
And it actually got to the point where we had no room for books, so we had to build a special building, which we call our library.
Maybe three weeks ago, I came to him and I said, "My book group has decided we want to read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
And do we have a copy of, of it anywhere?"
APPRAISER: Right.
By James Joyce.
GUEST: By James Joyce.
And I was sitting in the kitchen.
He comes out of our bedroom and says, "Yeah, we do.
We have this Portrait of the Artist."
And he opens it to give it to me and he goes, "Huh, look at that.
(laughing): It's signed."
APPRAISER: Yeah, so let's open it.
GUEST: (chuckling): A, and that was, like, a huge surprise.
APPRAISER: Oop!
GUEST: It says someplace in Italy, and it's dated 1928.
APPRAISER: 19, uh, 20.
GUEST: 1920.
APPRAISER: Yeah, so... GUEST: Right you are.
APPRAISER: It's Trieste in Italy.
GUEST: Oh, okay-- I couldn't read it.
APPRAISER: Yeah.
He s, he spent a lot of time in Trieste.
He went in 1905 for the first time.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: He worked on this book there a lot, too.
GUEST: Oh, he did?
APPRAISER: And he kind of bounced back and forth, because of the First World War.
He was kind of a self-exile at first, leaving Ireland.
He got a job teaching English in Trieste.
But he loved it.
This is the 13th of February.
And this particular stint in Trieste, he was there from the fall of the previous year.
And then in the spring, summer of 1920, he went to Paris and never lived in Trieste again.
GUEST: Oh, wow.
APPRAISER: But that's really helpful, because when we're talking about a signed book, we want to know if the signature looks right, which this does.
GUEST: Oh, good.
APPRAISER: And then the date needs to make sense, because usually, when people are gonna fake things, they're kind of sloppy.
They're not gonna know exactly which month and day he was in what city.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: Is this the copy you're reading for your book group?
(laughing): GUEST: No, I... (laughs) Uh, when I saw that, I went to the library and got a library copy.
APPRAISER: (chuckling) And do you have any idea where it came from?
GUEST: My suspicion is that it's my husband's great-aunt who lived in Boston, on Beacon Hill, and was a friend of many artists and writers-- Eugene O'Neill, people like that.
And she had many-- many of our books came through her.
APPRAISER: It's one of the earliest editions.
GUEST: Oh, really?
APPRAISER: And people are pretty serious about James Joyce.
And he didn't, he didn't sign a lot of things.
And this is very important... GUEST: Oh, really?
APPRAISER: ...'cause of the age, the 1920 signature, 'cause he's still kind of struggling at that point, which is cool.
GUEST: He wasn't well-known then.
APPRAISER: No.
And being so unusual in his style, a lot of people with Victorian sensibilities were kind of horrified at some of his approaches.
GUEST: Yes, I can see.
APPRAISER: Have you, have you ever thought about what the value is?
GUEST: I would imagine it's $5,000 or $10,000.
It's just sort of off the top of my head.
APPRAISER: This is of, one of the favorite titles of his.
It's nice and early, it has Trieste.
For auction, I would estimate this at $15,000 to $20,000.
GUEST: Wow, yeah, whoa-- okay.
(laughs) That's pretty nice.
(laughing) I guess I'm not gonna read it.
I have a terrible habit of dog-earing, you know, the pages.
(laughs) So I'm glad I didn't read that one for my book group.
(laughing) APPRAISER: Yeah.
(laughing) GUEST: I can't wait to tell my book group about this.
We're meeting tomorrow, and I haven't told them.
(chuckles) APPRAISER: That's a great s... I want to give them a shout-out.
Thanks for picking this title.
(both laughing)
$15,000 - $20,000 Auction
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