Buy new:
-32% $18.41
to get FREE delivery Wednesday, November 20
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: Book-center
$18.41 with 32 percent savings
List Price: $27.00
The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
to get FREE delivery Wednesday, November 20. Order within 15 hrs 3 mins
Or Non members get FREE delivery Saturday, November 23 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$18.41 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$18.41
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Sold by
Book-center
Sold by
Book-center
Returns
Returnable until Jan 31, 2025
Returnable until Jan 31, 2025
For the 2024 holiday season, eligible items purchased between November 1 and December 31, 2024 can be returned until January 31, 2025.
Read full return policy
Returns
Returnable until Jan 31, 2025
For the 2024 holiday season, eligible items purchased between November 1 and December 31, 2024 can be returned until January 31, 2025.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$7.73

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
There is a water stain on the book!!!! Item in acceptable condition including possible liquid damage. As well answers may be filled in. May be missing DVDs, CDs, Access code, etc. There is a water stain on the book!!!! Item in acceptable condition including possible liquid damage. As well answers may be filled in. May be missing DVDs, CDs, Access code, etc. See less
to get FREE delivery Wednesday, November 20. Order within 15 hrs 3 mins
Or Non members get FREE delivery Saturday, November 23 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$18.41 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$18.41
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

James Joyce
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Portable James Joyce Paperback – November 18, 1976

by James Joyce (Author), Harry Levin (Introduction)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 30 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$18.41","priceAmount":18.41,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"18","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"41","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"Rgrmf1sBM9G9dVz5lxK%2FeYpYQpoyy5EGi%2BHAOJ32FL4l7GoiXEhEyNNoR6adbx2O%2BFv3fJyPV%2Bqhavk587xIVFrUZq6r%2Ft8CEViXlvMOZzZYMBwPM8SVFMgYnaAx9Lw8CLzcUrnTBa1uL72LLQ0lKU7U4nYd4s45xeYIZE70AqaVsVnoqhrvg8EvRFpRQFcb","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$7.73","priceAmount":7.73,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"7","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"73","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"Rgrmf1sBM9G9dVz5lxK%2FeYpYQpoyy5EG13F5EhApErxQCHbW%2FRHfnXtbKaamLQOmGCD4bTKL7p7zUO%2B2wk%2FUdQuQnIeVDfX5J9XOBSVGDKJgM6tnyaeSs4NSeLVV61heoLNSJftuBrXNoJWzRzbBlZe3cn%2BE19kG3GM%2FrMbDkfec5oUdS6xt8T%2FlNbJDgS2C","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

The Portable James Joyce, edited and with an introduction by Harry Levin, includes four of the six books on which Joyce's astonishing reputatuion is founded: A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man; his Collected Poems (including Chamber Music); Exiles, Joyce's only drama; and his volume of short stories, Dubliners. In addition, there is a generous sampling from Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, including the famous "Anna Livia Plurabelle" episode.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    768 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    November 18, 1976
  4. Grade level
    12 and up
  5. Reading age
    18 years and up
  6. Dimensions
    7.76 x 5.08 x 1.53 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    9780140150308
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0140150308
  9. See all details
Next slide of product details
All the Little Raindrops: A Novel
"All the Little Raindrops: A Novel" by Mia Sheridan for $10.39
The chilling story of the abduction of two teenagers, their escape, and the dark secrets that, years later, bring them back to the scene of the crime. | Learn more

Frequently bought together

The Portable James Joyce
This item: The Portable James Joyce
$18.41
Get it as soon as Saturday, Nov 23
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by Book-center and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
Ulysses (The Gabler Edition)
$14.02
Get it as soon as Saturday, Nov 23
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses
$34.45
Get it as soon as Saturday, Nov 23
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
spCSRF_Treatment
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Joyce, the twentieth century’s most influential novelist, was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. The oldest of ten children, he grew up in a family that went from prosperity to penury because of his father’s wastrel behavior. After receiving a rigorous Jesuit education, twenty-year-old Joyce renounced his Catholicism and left Dublin in 1902 to spend most of his life as a writer in exile in Paris, Trieste, Rome, and Zurich. On one trip back to Ireland, he fell in love with the now famous Nora Barnacle on June 16, the day he later chose as “Bloomsday” in his novel Ulysses. Nora was an uneducated Galway girl who became his lifelong companion and the mother of his two children. In debt and drinking heavily, Joyce lived for 36 years on the Continent, supporting himself first by teaching jobs, then through the patronage of Mrs. Harold McCormick (Edith Rockerfeller) and the English feminist and editor Harriet Shaw Weaver. His writings include Chamber Music (1907), Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Exiles (1918), Ulysses (1922), Pomes Penyeach (1927), Finnegan's Wake (1939), and an early draft of A Portrait of a Young Man, Stephan Hero (1944). Ulysses required seven years to complete, and his masterpiece, Finnegan's Wake, took seventeen. Both works revolutionized the form, structure, and content of the novel. Joyce died in Zurich in 1941.

Harry Levin (1912–1994), literary critic and modernist literature scholar, graduated from Harvard University and began teaching there some years later. In 1960 he became the Irving Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard and retired in 1983.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0140150307
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin; Reprint edition (November 18, 1976)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 768 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780140150308
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140150308
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 12 and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.65 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.76 x 5.08 x 1.53 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 30 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
James Joyce

James Joyce

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century.

Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he utilised. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism and his published letters.

Joyce was born in 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin—about half a mile from his mother's birthplace in Terenure—into a middle-class family on the way down. A brilliant student, he excelled at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's alcoholism and unpredictable finances. He went on to attend University College Dublin.

In 1904, in his early twenties, Joyce emigrated permanently to continental Europe with his partner (and later wife) Nora Barnacle. They lived in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe centres on Dublin, and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there. Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses, he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."

Bio from from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
30 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Daniel P O'Neill
5.0 out of 5 stars Not light reading
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2019
Verified Purchase
Not for one who does not want to invest some time in the history and culture of Ireland from which Joyce draws inspiration.
Helpful
 Report
Esther
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book!
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book was brilliant! I love books with multiple short stories and such in them and the hardcover was so nice to have because it helped me not ruin the book. I am so clumsy books come to me to die, but they have a nice life because I read them to death
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Seshiro73
5.0 out of 5 stars A handy little book. I would have preferred a ...
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2016
Verified Purchase
A handy little book. I would have preferred a couple more sections from the Wake, but that might be pushing it.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Miles Rouches
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2014
Verified Purchase
Great collection from a great author... nuff said
Helpful
 Report
Mike
4.0 out of 5 stars One of the Greatest Post-Modernist Authors
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2015
Verified Purchase
One of the best books in my library! Mostly for the stories from The Dubliners and A portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jane Du
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
great book~
Helpful
 Report
James C Brandon
5.0 out of 5 stars ENLIGHTENING - Modern-day Odysseus, precursor to FINNEGANS WAKE
Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2016
Nirvanic FINNEGANS WAKE: James Joyce's West/East RevelationJoyce was 40 yrs old when Ulysses was published, it is a day in the life of a husband and father of Joyce's age (at publication). Joyce loved Dublin and Ireland and though the book was written on the European continent - he wanted to memorialize his birth home (Ireland). The framework of Ulysses is Homer's Odyssey - The Roman Ulysses: 1 Telemachus, 2 Nestor, 3 Proteus, 4 Calypso, 5 Lotus Eaters, 6 Hades, 7 Aeolus, 8 Lestrygonians, 9 Scylla And Charybdis, 10 Wandering Rocks, 11 Sirens, 12 Cyclops, 13 Nausicca, 14 Oxen Of The Sun, 15 Circe, 16 Eumaeus, 17 Ithaca, and 18 Penelope.

Ulysses is the tale of a Modern-day Odysseus, Leopold Bloom in his personal existential/sexual quest. The conclusion of this quest is the quintessential affirmation of humanity, the fundamental family unit - the father, mother, son, and daughter. Like Odysseus, absent from Penelope, traveling the world, for many long years, Leopold Bloom is also absent from his Penelope (in Dublin). Like a traveler (Odysseus), Bloom is sexually absent (abstinent) from Molly “10 years, 5 months and 18 days” (736). Unlike Odysseus, the obstacles Bloom faces are psychological (modern) - internal travails instead of Odysseus' external travails. Bloom's only son’s death has become a psychological barrier; as Molly reflects: “we were never the same since” (778). Yet Bloom is optimistic throughout the work - in regard to the possibility of another child, again Molly: ”Ill give him one more chance” (780). Affirmatively (as we grow to know Molly) we find she has given and is willing to continue to give Bloom “one more chance”. Through the course of the (Dublin) day, Bloom experiences “deep frustration, humiliation, fear, punishment and catharsis” (Herring, p.74). Bloom needs to lead himself back, out of self-deception, fantasy, and frustration to Molly’s (and his marriage) bed.

Bloom’s travails come in the Circe chapter and it is imperative (for Joyce) that as readers, we recognize Joyce’s change from Homer's Odyssey - this is Joyce's major rework, deviating from his Greek predecessor. For Odysseus: insight, understanding, enlightenment, and all importantly direction come to Odysseus in his journey to the (ancient Greek) Underworld. For Bloom, the Hades chapter or “the other world” represents an “emptiness of mind”; Joyce was a man grounded (and devoted) to the present world of man's consciousness and unconsciousness. In Ulysses enlightenment comes in the Circe chapter: described though the Joycean technique of hallucination or the discoveries of the "unconscious mind”. Joyce's Circe chapter (a surrealistic one-act Ibsen-like play) is where Bloom finds self-possession - (Joyce makes) Bloom encounter his own psycho-sexual existential questions, rather than finding life's answers in the dead ghosts of his life (the ancient Greek Hades chapter of the dead past).

In the Circe chapter, Bloom confronts and overcomes every major obstacle in his existential/sexual quest: the Molly he serves in Calypso reappears as Bello the whoremistress, Molly’s letter from Boylan and his from Martha are reworked into a series of seductive letters ending in a trial, his sexual infidelities beginning with Lotty Clarke and ending with Gerty McDowell are relived (importantly balanced by Molly’s infidelities) and reconciled, and lastly, Bloom triumphs over whore, Virgin-Goddess, and most importantly himself. Joyce equanimously gives both Molly and Bloom extramarital sexual infidelities - infidelities known by each of the other (as early as the Calypso chapter) Bloom was conscious of what was to come. Of course there will be resolution in marriage, for Molly only needs to feel that Bloom is willing. As we read, Bloom has undergone the travails of his own mind and has emerged Victorious. He has succeeded in his psycho-sexual existential quest. He has arrived at Molly’s bed. Self-possessed. Victorious. Eager.

Molly "I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him...then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down in to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. (END)".

After publishing Ulysses, Joyce began FINNEGANS WAKE (FW) - Joyce largely stepped out of one work into his next (and last work). The change Joyce made in FW was instead of using Homer's Ulysses as a framework - FW's framework is Giambattista Vico's "La Scienza Nuova's" 4 cyclic stages of history.

Joyce realized that he ended Ulysses wrongly (not in accordance with the Universe) in Molly's bed - Joyce corrects his mistake in FINNEGANS WAKE by incorporating Vico's revelation of restart / recirculation."HCE day" similar to Bloomsday (roughly 24 hrs): Chronologically FW starts with memories "book I:3" of HCE arrested in front of his gated refuge (from MaMaLuJo) unable to enter, unlike Bloom HCE does not enter through the back door, instead HCE is arrested in hours before dawn. Then memories "book I:4" HCE's psychological musings of past travails/guilts (living death, underworld excursion Ulysses ch Hades) while incarcerated in early hours of morning. Followed by memories "book I:2" HCE walks home through Phoenix Park accosted for the time of day (12 noon) which threatens (real/unreal memories, Ulysses ch Nausicaa) his innocent well-being. These 3 chapters in FW are Joyce's major rework to incorporate Vico's revelation of restart/recirculation into FW, Joyce rewrites 3 chapters of Ulysses: When He is denied Her front door, He is in Hell (on earth), when released (from Hell) His odyssey to Her begins again (with His ever-present accompanying internal travails) for She always knows when He is worthy of Her acceptance (their Paradise).

Then "book I:1" Finnegan's afternoon wake at HCE's tavern and retelling memories (books I:2-4). Inside HCE's tavern (his ship) his patrons talk about his family (Norwegian Captain and the Tailor's Daughter), truthful letters (ALP) and fabricated stories (books I:5-8 & II:3); while the children (Shaun, Shem and Iseult) are in and out of the family tavern/home all day taking their lessons (book II:2) and playing about with their friends (Shem's closing dream, book II:1); HCE, as proprietor, defends himself with a self-deprecating apologia before his intoxicated collapse late night (book II:3). HCE dreams on his tavern floor (book II:4); then dreams in his bed (books III:1-3); before intercourse with his wife ALP (book III:4). HCE & ALP's lovemaking dissolution dream (book IV) to awaken to a new day, Joycean Nirvana is attained by ALP's (& HCE's) awaiting Joyce's God "thunderclap" at the beginning of FW's "book I".

FW is aural (oral) history like Homer's Odessey and Celtic folktales - when one pronounces (phonology) FW's words (aloud) there are more languages than just English; also, when one reads (morphology) FW's words almost all the words are "portmanteaus / neologisms" which gives each of FW's "poly-syncretic" words many meanings (universal impermanence, Heisenberg uncertainty/obscurity), each FW syncretic sentence dozens of possible messages, each FW syncretic paragraph hundreds of possible readings, Joyce's rendering of a more expansive English language and multiplicating universal book with coalescing syncretic themes/stories (that responds/opens to each reader's inquiries). Joyce schooled in Christian Jesuit metaphysics (pushed down into the mindfulness of human consciousness) breathes in the spirit of expansive Celtic (Irish) democratic community tavern life where man's stories of life are told. Tavern life teaches the evolution of Joyce's ten "thunderclaps" (one hundred lettered words) pushing man's (technologic) evolution forward from cave man's tales to modern tv media tales: Indra's thunder upheavals: 1) Emergent human technologies (wheel, cloth, etc.), 2) Women's social/stratifying clothing (i.e. civilization's divisions), 3) Effeminate clerical social control (Buddha, Lao-Tze, Christ, Toltec seers, etc.), 4) Feudal degradation (cities/urban plight), 5) Writings disseminated (Gutenberg's press), 6) Renaissance (blooming informed culture), 7) Radio (instantaneous information), 8) Film (disseminated culture), 9) Reciprocating Engine (democratized travel), 10) TV (instantaneous global media culture). Inside the tavern man learns of the purely human (animal) fall, taken down by another human(s) - like animal taken down on the African savanna. A granular reading of FW can render FW as an updated John Milton's Paradise Lost (regurgitated knowledge from the tree, to affirm man's damnation); however, Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species was published in 1859 and Joyce in FW book II clearly walks Shaun, Shem and Iseult through their earthly evolutionary lifetime travails, our mortality is a consequence of Life's evolution. Every page of FW speaks to man's (unconscious biological survival, conscious "racing competitive" social, contemplative aspirational personal) evolution and to Life recirculating (West meets Dzogchen East a "meeting of metaphysical minds") that binds humanity together into the future. Dzogchen (beyond all dualistic polarities) the heart of human consciousness - Joyce's underlying (subcutaneous) arguments refute the "Western curse of metaphysical/mythological damnation", the curse does not exist in the Eastern mind. Like "counting the number of angels on the head of a pin" (Aquinas 1270) Joyce provides a granular/expansive reading of FW as a "defense against all Western adversity" for our conscious and unconscious Western travails. HCE's angst is caused by his community that imposes a Western curse (damnation) upon him that man is not guilty of...to experience Joycean Nirvana, a defense against this man-made guilt is required - for as Zoroaster revealed cosmogonic dualism, evil is mixed with good in man's everyday universal travails (even the Dalai Lama must defend Nirvana rigorously from the most populous authoritarian state in human history).

Joyce's FW celebrates the Joys of Christian/Buddhist diversity of humanity (expansive human consciousness: Gnostic Norwegian Captain, Shem, Archdruid), Brahma (Finnegan, HCE, Shaun), Divine Women (ALP, Iseult, Nuvoletta), his family - and the Sufferings of the inescapable "evil" of Shiva (Buckley), the debilitating harmful sterile intrusive authoritarian institutionalizing damnation (MaMaLuJo, St. Patrick) by Augustine, the manufactured clerical corruptions identified by Luther et al. (since 367 AD) and the burdens of "survival of the fittest" anxiety (modern commerce) met with a Dzogchen Buddhist stance. The (innocent infant) Norwegian Captain (Krishna, HCE), occasionally defensive (Shiva, HCE), though concretized (Brahma, HCE) by community family life (MaMaLuJo) - through spirits (drink) HCE accesses his spirituality (dreams) and through spiritual (cutting through) love-making with ALP (direct approach) they access (their Krishnas), unification with the Unmanifest. Joyce was a Prophet who consumed Man's conscious and spiritual "thoughts and dreams, history and gossip, efforts and failings" - to reveal the joys (Nirvana) and sufferings (Samsara) of Mankind.

Joyce's FW message: Christian/Buddhist omniscient compassion (Christ/Krishna) is eternally joyful and recirculating. Affirmative family (HCE/Brahma, ALP/Divine woman & children) existentiality: life's biological evolution (sex), modern survival (money), constraining community (Dharma, social evolution) are constantly assaulted by inescapable "aggressive insidious vile" corrupt soul(less/sucking) ossified demonic antipathetic attacks. Joycean Nirvana is attained via the Christian/Buddhist affirmative middle way, "beyond polar opposites" the path of Christ/Buddha.

JCB
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jubie
4.0 out of 5 stars Good.....Not Great
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2012
Verified Purchase
This is a good compilation but the completeness comes at a price....very small print and bulky book....fine for quick reference and short periods of reading
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report