Shipping Spring 2025
Limited to 26 copies and sold with rights to future Copperhead Press editions.
James Joyce's early masterpiece.
From childhood stories and wetting the bed to life as a college student and intellectual awakening; we follow Joyce’s narrative as he sounds the inner conscience of his hero, Stephen Dedalus.
Without a doubt, Portrait unlocked and empowered Joyce’s writing style moving forward, culminating in the towering Ulysses and stretching language even more so in the Gordian Knot that is Finnegan’s Wake.
As our third publication, Copperhead Press is pleased to present, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce.
This Edition
Measurement: 8 7/8" x 5 7/8"
Full bound in premium White Goatskin. Centered on the front cover is a single foiled triskelion, also known as a Celtic Spiral Knot. This ancient motif is often used to represent growth, rebirth and the divine. It makes a fitting symbol for the journey of Joyce's protagonist.
Each of these copies will be hand sewn with cognac brown book thread. The end pages are handmade paste papers, each one unique and sewn to the text block, making an extra strong binding.
The headbands are made with a copper orange suede material.
The clamshell case is made with a thick book board and is covered in Japanese Ginga Bronze Book cloth. Japanese book cloth is considered among the finest and most elegant of the book cloths.
Inside, the clamshell is lined with copper orange suede cloth and an interior spine piece covered in Chiyogami Mum Navy Lattice paper. This paper is a luxurious hand-printed paper using the silk-screen technique. In this laborious process each color is applied using a separate screen.
The outside of the clamshell features an early photograph of James Joyce printed on white felt paper. The clamshell spine tag is also printed on white felt paper. The clamshell measures 9 3/4" x 6 3/4".
Sold with rights to future lettered editions.
As an idea of what future titles may be, some of our favorite writers are: John Steinbeck, Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Graham Greene, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, Anton Chekhov, Ernest Hemingway, George Eliot, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joseph Conrad, etc... We like many modernist writers and the classics that influenced them.
Printing & Paper
This edition is printed offset on white felt paper.
The Artist
Inside you will find 10 illustrations from the Dublin born artist, Joseph Malachy Kavanagh. Kavanagh's life overlapped with that of Joyce. He was well known for his oil paintings and etches of coastal landscapes, riverside scenes, and other images of rural
life in Ireland, France and Belgium.
