Ulysses (No. 474 of 1,000), inscribed to James Stephens in 1935

James Joyce presented this copy (number 474) of the first edition of his novel Ulysses to his friend, the Irish poet and novelist James Stephens, on February 2, 1935. It was the 13th anniversary of the publication of the book and Joyce’s 53rd birthday. (Both authors erroneously believed that they shared the same birth date.) While mutually suspicious of each other when they first met in 1912, Joyce grew to respect Stephens’s work. He suggested, perhaps not altogether seriously, that if Joyce were to leave Finnegans Wake uncompleted at the time of his death, Stephens could finish writing the novel. In that circumstance, it was to be published under the initials JJ & S—for Jameses Joyce & Stephens, which is also a Joycean pun on the Irish whiskey made by John Jameson & Son.