"Countless readers have begun Finnegans Wake - James Joyce's masterwork, on which he labored for a third of his life - only to give up after a few pages and dismiss this great work as a "perverse triumph of the unintelligible." Indeed, when it was first published in 1939, the book was met largely with indifference, as readers and critics asked, "Why bother with a book that's so hard to read?" Five years later, in 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with novelist and poet Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first guide to entering the fascinating, disturbing, marvelous world of Finnegans Wake." "Few early readers found themselves able to work out the mythical and literary allusions that Joyce drew on in Finnegans Wake, but for Campbell it all made sense. Referring to the years he spent in a cabin during the Depression reading book after book of the Western and Eastern Canons, Campbell explained, "Everything that Joyce was writing about came straight out of what I'd been immersing myself in during those five years in the wilderness." Page by page, chapter by chapter, A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake outlines the basic action of Joyce's book, simplifies and clarifies the complex web of images and allusions, and provides an understandable, continuous narrative from which the reader can venture out on his or her own."--BOOK JACKET.

Includes bibliographical references (p, 365-371) and index.

About the collected works of Joseph Campbell Bk. I. The book of the parents Ch. I. Finnegan's fall Ch. II. HCE - his agnomen and reputation Ch. III. HCE - his trial and incarceration Ch. IV. HCE - his demise and resurrection Ch. V. The manifesto of ALP Ch. VI. Riddles - the personages of the manifesto Ch. VII. Shem the Penman Ch. VIII. The washers at the Ford Bk. II. The book of the sons Ch. I. The children's hour

Ch. II. The study period - Triv and Quad Ch. III. Tavernry in feast Ch. IV. Bride-ship and gulls Bk. III. The book of the people Ch. I. Shaun before the people Ch. II. Jaun before St. Bride's Ch. III. Yawn under inquest Ch. IV. HCE and ALP - their bed of trial Bk. IV. Ricorso A Joseph Campbell bibliography About the Joseph Campbell Foundation.