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An association copy of Ulysses, the most important and influential novel of the twentieth century, sold for $189,000 at Sotheby’s sale of Fine Books and Manuscripts in New York. It was number 41 of only 100 numbered copies signed by Joyce and printed on Dutch handmade paper. The estimate was $150,000-250,000.

The total first edition of Ulysses was limited to 1,000 copies. Following the signed and numbered copies on Dutch handmade paper was an issue of 150 copies on vergé d’Arches paper, and an issue of 750 copies on handmade paper. The official date of publication was Joyce’s birthday, February 2, 1922, but difficulties with the cover meant that in fact only two copies, both from the 1/750 issue, were actually ready that day. No further copies of any issue of Ulysses appeared from the printer until February 9 (when a further batch of the 1/750 arrived), followed by the first of the 1/100 on February 13, and the 1/150 series on March 4. It is now thought that this reflects the order in which Ulysses was actually printed.

The key to the Eccles St. home of Leopold Bloom.  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £7,500

A key created by James Joyce to help his friends keep track of Ulysses comes up at Sotheby’s book sale in London on December 10.  Seven copies were produced in total as the author ever wanted it to be shared too widely. In his words ‘If I give it all up immediately, I’d lose my immortality. I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant”.  However by 1930 it has been seen so widely that Joyce allowed its publication.  Another lot in the sale is the latchkey to Leopold Bloom’s fictional home at 7 Eccles Street, Dublin. In Ulysses, Bloom’s missing latchkey has been interpreted in Freudian terms as a symbol of his loss of potency, and in political terms as a synecdoche of Irish dispossession before Independence, but given Joyce’s careful mapping of Dublin in the novel it is also a key to a real front door – the home of one of Joyce’s friends. The key was rescued by a Joyce scholar when the house was demolished in the 1960s. The house’s front door was also reclaimed and is now exhibited at Dublin’s James Joyce Centre.

A little more background on the story of the key in Ulysses – Bloom leaves his latchkey behind in the pocket of yesterday’s trousers when he departs from his home at the beginning of his day’s odyssey. He had reminded himself several times to pick up the key before going out, and his annoyance at his own forgetfulness recurs several times in the novel. Finally, when Bloom staggers home in the early hours of the morning with Stephen Dedalus , he puts his hand in his empty pocket to retrieve his key, so he has to hop the fence and come in by the back door.

Sotheby’s specialist Gabriel Heaton said: “So our sale has two keys to Ulysses. One is a secret that was never kept but has guided generations of students through the novel; the other once unlocked a front door that now opens onto a brick wall. The very fact that these items still attract such interest shows that Joyce’s immortality is safe enough, and one cannot help but think that Joyce himself would have taken great pleasure in the appearance at auction of his fictional hero’s lost key.”

The current example is one of three copies of the definitive English schema to precede the novel’s publication, the other two being for the translator Valery Larbaud and the publisher Sylvia Beach.   The online sale runs December 10.

UPDATE:  The schema sold for £47,500, the key for £7,500.