Here's something you don't see everyday, and something I was particularly excited to get to look at, the volumes of Richard F. Burton's
Nights that were a part of the library of James Joyce. I don't know much about the particularities of the volumes, where Joyce bought them, etc., but do know he got them and read them (via a couple of articles by Aida Yared) after writing, or shortly before finishing,
Ulysses.
They are housed as a part of the Poetry Collection of the University of Buffalo (NY) Libraries, along with a ton of Joyce related writings and other incredible things, like the original of Yeats' order form for
Ulysses, and etc. etc.
Many thanks to the staff at the Library, very cool people, always be nice to your librarians, they run the world.
I took these pictures, but they are owned by The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, so don't use them elsewhere! Thank you!
As an aside, it is known that there are no markings in the books, and that most of the pages are cut (they used to have every page sealed, and you had to cut them to read them), but what has never (as far as I've read) been remarked on is that Volume 10 ("Terminal Essay," etc.) has a particularly well creased spine, the pages laid flat, unlike all of the other volumes (yes, I asked to look through all of them...), and, most interestingly, the pages of Volume 10 smelled of smoke, other volumes didn't. Immortality indeed. Yes.
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