The first letter written by James Joyce as he offered his debut work for publication sold for £32,265 at auction yesterday.
The letter, written at the start of his long battle to have Dubliners published, was bought at Christie's in London by a member of the trade.
The price, which was more than £2,000 above the highest estimated value, included a buyer's premium.
In the letter, written on September 23rd, 1905, when the author was 23, Joyce explained to publisher W. Heinemann: "The book is not a collection of tourist impressions but an attempt to represent certain aspects of the life of one of the European capitals."
Heinemann rejected the work, and Joyce continued to battle for nearly a decade to have it published.
An edition was printed in 1910 but later burned by the printers, who considered some of it offensive.
The bitterness Joyce felt as a result culminated in him leaving his beloved Ireland forever.
By the time Dubliners was finally published, in London in 1914, Joyce and his family were living in exile in Zurich.
Other notable items among the 50-lot collection of Joyce artifacts, which included manuscripts, books and drawings, was the sale of one of only 25 copies of an Obelisk Press edition of Pomes Penyeach, which sold for £26,290.