Finnegans Wake page proofs, two (incomplete) copies of two sets.
Special Collections, The McFarlin Library, the University of Tulsa has printed
a brochure and catalog of The Paul and Lucie Léon/James Joyce Collection,
(nd: available on request) which includes two copies each of two
different sets of Wake page proofs (full bibliographic description
in the brochure), not widely known by the Joyce community until Luca Crispi
of the University of Buffalo Poetry/Rare Book Collection came across them
in October 2001 and shared the good news with some to whom it would be of
interested. I am indebted to the McFarlin Library and to him for letting
me see copies of the pages of the marked set for chapters 2-4.
One copy of the first set includesWake pages 1-512 and
is unmarked. The other copy of the first set includes Wake pages 1-355
, and is marked by Joyce and Paul Léon in green and black ink. It
contains printer's markings indicating that they are the setting proofs for
the second set of proofs. One copy of the second set, pages 1-355, is similarly
unmarked, and the other copy is similarly marked by Joyce and Léon,
though the marked set covers Wake pages 257-320 and is therefore not
directly relevant to chapters 2-4. I have not seen the unmarked copy of the
second set, which presumably will reflect the changes made on the first set
and quite possibly an error or two of these pages' own.
No page proofs were known to the compilers of the James Joyce
Archive, and so they describe the missing proofs, which they designate
as level 12 (for chapters 2-4), as: “Page proofs (missing), or later
corrections for revised galleys; only a few modifications to the text were
made at this draft stage” (JJA 50: 285).
Since each of the two different sets of proofs constitutes
a revision level, which under the Archive system should be given a whole number,
we have revised the levels designations in this one instance by advancing
the Corrections List, the only remaining level after the page proofs, from
the Archive's 13 to 14. The first set of page proofs (no longer described
as missing) remains level 12, and the second set receives the designation
of level 13. The unmarked copies, again by Archive principles, should be designated
12' and 13'.