transition, an avant-garde literary magazine, founded and edited by Eugene Jolas and Elliot Paul, was the primary avenue through which Joyce’s later work appeared in print. From April 1927 — May 1938, seventeen fragments of Work in Progress, what would become Finnegans Wake, appeared here.

A. Here are several issues of transition magazine, including number 1 (April 1927), in which the opening episode of Joyce’s Work in Progress appeared for the first time. transition brought together a variety of writers and artists active in Paris at the time; note the cover of transition no. 13 (Summer 1928) with a work by Picasso.

B. A reproduction of a collection of photos of Joyce Beach had on the walls of Shakespeare & Co. by the noted photographer Man Ray, who was then living in Paris.

C. A reproduction of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s rendering of "Festival of St. James," an evening at Adreinne Monnier’s Paris apartment in July 1928. Fitzgerald pictures himself kneeling at Joyce’s feet. Fitzgerald drew this on the flyleaf of his own The Great Gatsby and sent it to Sylvia Beach.

D. Two news clippings that review transition issues in which Joyce’s Work in Progress appeared: the conservative and mocking Punch article (London, 16 November 1927) refers to Joyce, Stein and Schwitters as a band of "surrealists" and in the Anthologie du Groupe Moderne D’Art (Paris, February 1930), Joyce and his Work in Progress are numbered among one of several revolutionary "Modernisms."

E. The first edition of Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, Shakespeare & Co., 12, rue de l’Odéon (Paris, 1929). There were 96 numbered copies printed on vergé d’Arches, of which this was Sylvia Beach’s copy. She later inscribed it "For Connie [Stafford]."

Collected here are twelve essays, most of which had previously appeared in transition, that were meant to prepare readers for Joyce’s experiments and assuage criticism of his recent work. The contributions include essays by Beckett, Budgen, Gilbert, Jolas as well as two parodic letters of protest: the one by Slingsby was actually written by Joyce; the other, by Vladmir Dixon, was at one time incorrectly thought to have been written by Joyce. Beckett’s essay here was his first published piece.

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