Beschreibung:

Joyce, JamesGas from a Burner. Trieste: September, 1912 Broadside (588 x 230 mm). 98 lines printed in black on white wove paper, with printed signature at foot; 3 horizontal folds, small marginal tears in 3rd fold. In calf case ruled in gilt. A very rare copy of Joyce's satirical poem, written following the destruction of the first edition of Dubliners. Slocum & Cahoon note that "On the Esher-Randle-Keynes-Spoerri copy of this broadside is the following holograph note in ink by Joyce: 'This Pasquinade was written in the railway station waiting room at Flushing, Holland on the way to Trieste from Dublin after the malicious burning of the 1st edition of Dubliners (1000 copies less one in my possession) by the printer Messrs John Falconer. Upper Sackville Street Dublin in July 1912.'" The remarkable story of the destruction of the 1910 Maunsel edition by the printer John Falconer is part of the larger, infamous story of the publication history of Dubliners. A succession of publishers and printers considered and then even began work on the book, but all before Grant Richards in 1914, ultimately pulled out because of suggestive or possibly obscene passages in "Two Gallants" and "Ivy Day in the Committee Room", references to Edward VII and Queen Victoria (considered offensive), and other portions of the text of apparently questionable taste. As far as British publishers were concerned, Joyce probably did not fully appreciate the fact that under English law, a printer of objectionable material is as guilty of breaking the law as the publisher, and equally subject to criminal prosecution. Grant Richards, who had turned the book down initially in 1905, having at first signed a contract with the author, was particularly sensitive to this, having just emerged from bankruptcy. At the time, Joyce defended his work to Richards, stating, "It is not my fault that the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal hangs round my stories. I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilisation in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass" (Slocum & Cahoon). The Dublin publisher Maunsel and Company signed a contract for the book in September 1909, and Joyce may have felt that his problems were over. In July 1910 1000 copies were printed by the firm of John Falconer. However early in 1911 George Roberts managing director of Maunsel, raised further objections and announced a postponement. Joyce first responded, remarkably, by writing a letter to George V; unsurprisingly, he only received a response from his secretary stating, “it is inconsistent with rule for His Majesty to express his opinion on such cases” (Ellmann). He then sent public letters to Sinn Féin and the Northern Whig complaining of Roberts's treatment. This may well have generated resentment on the publisher's part, and in August 1912, when Joyce had returned to Ireland with Nora and his children, Roberts wrote to him declaring that whilst he was unafraid of the charge of immorality (he had, after all, published Synge's The Playboy of the Western World) he now believed Dubliners could be perceived as anti-Irish and therefore out of keeping with his aims as an Irish publisher (Ellman). He also had to take into account, in a country notoriously addicted to libel actions, the potential loss of income and goodwill in court suits. On the other hand, Joyce was in some good company on the authors' side in complaining of his treatment: the list of Irish writers with whom Roberts fell out eventually included Yeats, Lady Gregory, James Stephens, Alice Milligan and Seumas O'Sullivan. Roberts suggested that Grant Richards take over the sheets, thus circumnavigating the English publisher's problem in finding a printer willing to risk a possible libel action. Further negotiations ensued in person in Dublin in August between Joyce and his potential publisher, and an agreement appeared to have been reached. But then on 2