<p>As James Joyce was working on <i>Finnegans Wake</i>, he asked his friend T.S. Eliot to shepherd an early extract, simply known as ''Work in Progress'' into print. This celebrated episode, <i>Anna Livia Plurabelle</i>, was the first part of Joyce''s extraordinary text to be published in England, printed in pamphlet form in 1930. It became the best-known section of <i>Finnegans Wake</i>, and one of Joyce''s favourites; revised and published independently more times than any other piece. This new edition in the Faber Modern Classics series includes a new foreword by Edna O''Brien.<br><br>''His writing is not about something; it is that something itself.'' Samuel Beckett</p>