COLLECTIBLES

RARE BOOKS CAN BRING VOLUMES OF ADVENTURE AND REAMS OF CASH

Once the focus of obscenity trials and still provocative as an example of groundbreaking modernist literature, James Joyce's stream-of-consciousness Ulysses is a bedeviling mix of bawdy puns, Irish in-jokes, parodies, experimental wordsplay and literary allusions. To make sense of Leopold Bloom's travails on a single day in Dublin—June 16, 1904—readers must wade through this massive work with a guidebook or two, and walk a tightrope between confusion, hilarity and sheer intimidation.

But rejoice. One doesn't need a doctorate in literary criticism to grasp the steady rise of Ulysses in the rare book world. Now one of the most coveted trophies in collecting circles, a first edition of this everyman version of Homer's The Odyssey has become such a Holy Grail that a large paper version bound in the original blue wrappers that sold for $40,000 three years ago can now fetch $75,000. Even more dramatic, a signed volume auctioned for $100,000 four years ago soared to an impressive $300,000 in 2005.

Other fabled titles in superb condition are also enjoying a current run-up.