Exclusive Editions

New Hodges Figgis Folio edition

The Shelbourne

Elizabeth Bowen's The Shelbourne, originally published in 1951, is an evocative account of Irish life as told through the windows of the iconic Dublin landmark, the Shelbourne hotel. Its guests, staff, and ever-changing city in which it is situated all lend their hands to create an account of Dublin unlike any other, from its early days as a grand establishment in the British Empire, then the battleground of Irish independence and civil strife, to the eventual capital of the republic.

This title is a part of a limited run of 2500 copies, with each uniquely hand-numbered inside.

The Charwoman's Daughter

The Charwoman’s Daughter tells the curious tale of young Mary Makebelieve and her mother, a ferocious widow who mops and dusts the grand houses of Dublin. While her mother works, Mary spends her days exploring the city’s sights and sounds, from the grasping poverty of their tenement to the liberating air of the open streets. Soon, her wanderings come to the attention of a whiskered policeman, whose concern isn’t quite as innocent as it might first seem…

A profound and beautiful portrait of an early twentieth-century Dublin in the midst of great social and physical change, The Charwoman’s Daughter remains a strange and bittersweet ode to the city James Stephens knew so well.

The first volume in the Hodges Figgis folio.

Ulysses

Following the events of one single day in Dublin, 16 June 1904, and what happens to the characters Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly, Ulysses is a monument to the human condition. It has survived censorship, controversy and legal action, and even been deemed blasphemous, but remains an undisputed modernist classic: ceaselessly inventive, garrulous, funny, sorrowful, vulgar, lyrical and ultimately redemptive. It confirms Joyce’s belief that literature ‘is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man’.

‘Everybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the century’ Anthony Burgess

Ulysses is the first volume in the Hodges Figgis James Joyce Collection.

Dubliners

Joyce’s first major work, written when he was only twenty-five, brought his city to the world for the first time. His stories are rooted in the rich detail of Dublin life, portraying ordinary, often defeated lives with unflinching realism. He writes of social decline, sexual desire and exploitation, corruption and personal failure, yet creates a brilliantly compelling, unique vision of the world and human experience.

Joyce’s best book: for a young man write with such poise, clarity, elegance, and wisdom is extraordinary’ John Banville

Dubliners is the second volume in the Hodges Figgis James Joyce Collection.

Puckoon

Spike Milligan's hilarious novel centres round the unfortunate town of Puckoon. Through incompetence, dereliction of duty and sheer perversity, the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic ends up running right through the middle of the town: husbands are separated for their wives, bars cut off from their patrons - chaos abounds.