At Swim Two Birds. New York: Pantheon Books, [1951]. First American Edition. Pp, 315. Quarter black cloth & yellow boards, title printed in black to upper cover, in publisher’s yellow dust jacket, printed in black. Light browning to edges of jacket and chipped along top-edge, otherwise a very good copy.

The first American edition of Brian O’Nolan’s masterpiece, first published in 1939.

Apparently At Swim-Two-Birds was one of the last books that James Joyce read. He was given an inscribed copy of the book by Niall Sheridan, a friend of O’Nolan. Joyce declared it the work of a “real writer” who had “the true comic spirit” and attempted to get the book reviewed in French periodicals, although without success.