JOYCE (JAMES) Autograph postcard signed ('James Joyce') to Sean O'Casey ('Dear Mr O'Casey'), written in green ink, enclosing a clipping from The Irish Times [not present], with '...a curious misprint - if it is a misprint. I hope it may be prophetical and that we may some day meet...' and that he and his wife are planning on seeing his play once she gets better, ending amusingly '...and if I find that it is attributed to me I shall certainly send you another programme...', 2 pages, light dust-staining, some marks, oblong 12mo (94 x 137mm.), 34 rue des Vignes, Paris, [n.d. postmark 26 May 1939] Footnotes: 'A CURIOUS MISPRINT - IF IT IS A MISPRINT... A HAPPY AND AMUSING OMEN': FINNEGANS WAKE MISTAKENLY ATTRIBUTED IN THE DUBLIN PRESS. Our postcard from Joyce to Sean O'Casey originally accompanied a newspaper clipping from The Irish Times in which Finnegans Wake, published on 4 May 1939, and announced in its 'Publications Received' column, is wrongly attributed to O'Casey. Joyce takes it in good part and hopes that when his wife Norah has recovered from influenza, they will see O'Casey's play Juno and the Paycock at the Theatre de l'Oeuvre: '...if I find that it is attributed to me I shall certainly send you another programme...' he quips. Sean O'Casey responded in a letter of 30 May, expressing his relief that Joyce has taken it so well and that his mind '...is still far away from the power of writing such a book...' and believing that the misprint is not an error but a joke on behalf of Dublin's literary clique, to which O'Casey and Joyce were outsiders (David Krause (ed.), The Letters of Sean O'Casey, London, 1975, Vol.I, p. 800). The editor, R. M. Smyllie, visited Joyce in Paris to assure him it was an accidental misprint but neither Joyce nor O'Casey were persuaded. O'Casey was a staunch supporter of Joyce's work, having signed the protest against Samuel Roth's piracy of Ulysses in 1927, and proposed to the editor of the journal Books Abroad that both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake should be nominated for the most important books written since 1918: 'They are unique, and, I think, tremendous. There can be no question of the artistry of the man, of his strange originality, and of the rich tragic and comic poetry that blossoms in all that he has written' (Christopher Murray, Sean O'Casey, 2004, p.500). Our postcard is published in Richard Ellmann (ed.), Letters of James Joyce, 1966, p.442. Provenance: Sotheby's, 'Property of Mrs Sean O'Casey', 15 December 1982, lot 229; Christie's, 'The Albin Schram Collection of Autograph Letters', 3 July 2007, lot 96. This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: * * VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing