I am including below a list of books that I’ve either used myself to help me understand Finnegans Wake or books that James Joyce references throughout the book.
Books I’ve Referenced
These are the books I’ve used to help me understand Finnegans Wake. It’s mostly a collection of guides and annotations to Joyce’s final work.
- A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake: Unlocking James Joyce’s Masterwork by Joseph Campbell
- Joyce’s Book of the Dark by John Bishop
- Annotations to Finnegans Wake by Roland McHugh
- A Reader’s Guide to Finnegans Wake by William York Tindall
- James Joyce by Richard Ellmann
- The Romance of Tristan and Iseult retold by J. Bedier.
Books Joyce References
Where to begin? These are books that Joyce references throughout Finnegans Wake, at least as far as I am able to tell. I doubt I’ll read all of these, of course, but I do plan on purchasing and referencing them throughout.
- The New Science by Giambattista Vico
- One Thousand and One Arabian Nights
- The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
Shawn the Penman 