A copy of Ulysses presented by James Joyce to H.G. Wells comes up at Bonhams sale of fine books, manuscripts and photographs in London on June 24. From the 9th printing it is inscribed: “To H.G. Wells respectfully James Joyce, 5 November 1928 Paris” .
Wells was an important early advocate of Joyce, writing a highly favourable review of his first book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and describing it as “a book to buy and read and lock up, but it is not a book to miss. Its claim to be literature is as good as the claim of the last book of Gulliver’s Travels… No single book has ever shown how different they [English and Irish sensibilities] are, as completely as this most memorable novel” (The New Republic, 10 March 1917). It is estimated at £20,000-30,000.
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