12mo. Title printed within pictorial border. Original gilt-lettered green cloth (very slightly rubbed at extremities); half green morocco folding case.  

 

FIRST EDITION OF JOYCE’S FIRST PUBLISHED WORK, one of 509 copies, in the third variant binding (priority of the second and third variants undetermined). Chamber Music was printed at the urging of Arthur Symons, to whom Yeats introduced Joyce in the fall of 1904. Joyce never received royalties for its publication, though in 1912, he sold copies in Trieste with considerable success. The suite of 36 lyrical poems reflected the sentiment and mood of Joyce as a young poet. He intended the poems to be set to music, and not long after the work was published, G. Molylneux Palmer wrote to Joyce asking permission to do so; by July 1909, Palmer had completed the musical settings. Slocum and Cahoon A3.