James Joyce His First Forty Years. New York: BH Huebsch, 1924. First Edition. Black cloth boards, lettered in blind to upper cover & in gilt to spine; in publisher’s cream dust jacket lettered in black. Jacket chipped along top edge, but overall a nice bright copy.

Inscribed by Herbert S. Gorman on the front free endpaper.

The first authorized biography of James Joyce, appearing just two years after the publication of Ulysses. Gorman’s book was a pioneering effort being one of the first comprehensive accounts to trace the connections between Joyce’s life in Dublin, his self-imposed exile in Europe, and the development of his modernist prose style.

For a public grappling with Joyce’s revolutionary and often controversial work, Gorman’s biography acted as a vital guide and introduction, helping to establish the narrative of Joyce as a literary genius and modernist pioneer.