Annotations to Finnegans Wake

He expands his examination of possible textual corruption and adds hundreds of new glosses to help scholars, students, and general readers untangle the dense thicket of allusions that crowds every sentence of Joyce's nearly inscrutable masterpiece.

Roland McHugh's classic Annotations to Finnegans Wake provides both novice readers and seasoned Joyceans with a wealth of information in an easy-to-use format uniquely suited to this densely layered text. Each page of the Annotations corresponds directly to a page of the standard Viking/Penguin edition of Finnegans Wake and contains line-by-line notes following the placement of the passages to which they refer, enabling readers to look directly from text to notes and back again, with no need to consult separate glossaries or other listings. McHugh's richly detailed annotations distill decades of scholarship, explicating foreign words, unusual English connotations and colloquial expressions, place names, historical events, song titles and quotations, parodies of other texts, and Joyce's diverse literary and popular sources. This thoroughly updated fourth edition draws heavily on Internet resources and keyword searches. For the first time, McHugh provides readers with a synopsis of the action of Finnegans Wake. He also expands his examination of possible textual corruption and adds hundreds of new glosses to help scholars, students, and general readers untangle the dense thicket of allusions that crowds every sentence of Joyce's nearly inscrutable masterpiece.

It is hard to think of any reader of Finnegans Wake who would not have Roland McHugh''s Annotations . . . on his desk.
—James Joyce Literary Supplement

All readers who contemplate any exegetical move whatsoever in the Wake must put the revised Annotations on the top of their pile of reference books.
—James Joyce Quarterly

Unravels the mysteries of James Joyce.
—New York Times

McHugh remains admirable for his collection.
—Tim Conley, James Joyce Quarterly

I don''t think we still have readers such as Roland McHugh who read the Wake without any help: most novices read the Wake in one hand and McHugh''s Annotations in the other.
—A Collideorscape of Joyce

A daunting and delightful book.
—Modern Fiction Studies