Most of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake was serialized in the avant-garde literary magazine transition. The issue numbers of the periodical are given, with pages, followed by the equivalent passages in the full text of Finnegans Wake. This table shows that when Cage was in Paris in 1930 he could have seen all of Part I, all of Part III, and a passage from Part II.

The first installment was headed Opening Pages of a Work in Progress, and most of the subsequent ones were called Continuation of a Work in Progress. These appearances were a major part of the avant-garde scene for a decade, controversial but strongly supported by most of the transition writers. Gertrude Stein appeared regularly in the same period. Richard Budd in his Catalog 87 (September 2005) described transition as “the most important of the American expatriate magazines, it lasted longer, published more influential writers, and had a wider readership than any other journal edited abroad by an American,” and he offered a complete set for sale at £4,500.

• 1. April 1927, pp. 9–30 [FW 3–29]

• 2. May 1927, pp. 94–107 [FW 30–47]

• 3. June 1927, pp. 32–50 [FW 48–74]

• 4. July 1927, pp. 46–65 [FW 75–103]

• 5. August 1927, pp. 15–31 [FW 104–25] (part reprinted from the Criterion)

• 6. September 1927, pp. 87–106 [FW 126–68]

• 7. October 1927, pp. 34–56 [FW 169–95] (appeared in earlier form in This Quarter, No. 1)

• 8. November 1927, pp. 17–35 [FW 196–216] (concludes Part I)

• 9. and 10. Nothing by Joyce who was ill

• 11. February 1928, pp. 7–18 [FW 282–304] (Part III was not ready, so Joyce “consented to detach pages from Part II” for this contribution)

• 12. March 1928, pp. 7–27 [FW 403–28] (this is now Part III)

• 13. Summer 1928, pp. 5–32 [FW 429–73] transition is now described as “An International Quarterly for Creative Experiment”

• 14. Nothing by Joyce

• 15. February 1929, pp. 197–238 [FW 474–554]

• 16–17. June 1929, nothing by Joyce

• 18. November 1929, pp. 211–36 [FW 555–90]

• 19–20. Nothing by Joyce

• 21. Transition 1932.