A rare copy of Ulysses by James Joyce was recently found in a charity shop. It is expected to be sold for around £800 at auction for charity this month.
The rare edition of the celebrated Irish novel was unexpectedly found by volunteer bookkeeper Francoise Curtis. Curtis noticed the book when he was working at Tenovus Cancer Care in Cardiff, Wales.
The special edition of the literary classic was shockingly priced at a mere £1 by the charity shop but fortunately, the correct value of the novel was discovered and it was taken off the shelf. The shop manager, Carl Scott, who originally priced the novel at £1, told the BBC he was very glad that the book was not purchased “as someone would have had that bargain.”
Curtis, who found the book, told the BBC: “As soon as I opened the page, I could tell it was something special because it had its edition number”. She then added, “I discovered this special edition in relatively good condition amongst a pile of Thomas Hardy books donated from a gentleman we’d not seen in the shop before and none of us knew”.
There are no details about the unidentified man who donated the book, which is numbered 766 of only 900 volumes. The book also contained two mystery court commons from 1964, for possession of firearms, which appeared to be used as bookmarks.
About Ulysses:
Ulysses is a modernist novel that tells the story of three characters – Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and his wife, Molly Bloom. The novel has themes of alienation, Irish identity, love, sex and more. It was written over seven years in three different cities and portrays the events of one day in Dublin. The novel was originally published by Paris bookseller Sylvia Beach on 2nd February 1922. Beach stated that it would “rank among the classics in English literature”. The novel was later republished by Random House after it had been banned in the UK and US. Some of the content had been deemed obscene, particularly the chapters in which masturbation and sexual fantasy are depicted.
The auction will be held on the 16th of March at Roger Jones and Co Auction House in Leckwith, Cardiff. All of the proceeds will go to Tenovus Cancer Care.
Words by Lucy Turquand-Young
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