Pirates and
Patrons
|
|
| 66 |
Chamber Music, [1918]
CHAMBER MUSIC | BY
| JAMES JOYCE | [publisher’s device] | THE CORNHILL COMPANY
|BOSTON
(56K)
|
|
Contents: p.
[1], half-title; p. [2], blank; p. [3], title-page; p. [4],
blank; pp. [5–40], text, Roman numerals head each poem
consecutively, I–XXXVI. Published: 1918; $1; bound in green
cloth over boards, 15.8 x 11.2 cm., stamped in gilt on front
cover: CHAMBER | MUSIC | JAMES JOYCE ; printed on white laid
paper, 15.2 x 10.6 cm. [Slocum & Cahoon A5]
Chamber
Music has the dubious distinction of being the first of
Joyce’s works to be pirated, though it was certainly not
the last. Alfred Bartlett’s Cornhill Company of Boston,
Massachusetts was most famous for its Cornhill Booklet,
which periodically printed collections of literary excerpts,
anecdotes and aphorisms for sale at newsstands. Decoratively
printed, Bartlett’s postcard-size Cornhill Broadsides were
some of the first collectable “motto cards.” In
addition to this pirated edition of Joyce’s first volume of
poetry, Cornhill Company issued editions of Wilde, Stevenson, and
Thoreau, and as well as publishing Mark Twain’s
“English as She is Instructed” in the Cornhill
Booklet (1901).
|
| 67 |
Pomes Penyeach, 1931
POMES PENYEACH [in
red] | BY | JAMES JOYCE | PRIVATELY PRINTED | CLEVELAND |
1931
(81K)
|
|
Contents: p.
[1–3], blank; p. [4], copyright notice: Copyright by James
Joyce | 1927 ; p. [5], half-title; p. [6], By the Same Author
[list of 6 titles]; p. [7], title-page; p. [8], blank; pp.
[9–22], text; p. [23], blank; p. [24], colophon: This
edition of Pomes Penyeach | is limited to one hundred copies |
printed by hand on Georgian | Book paper and numbered one | to
one hundred. [number written in ink]; pp. [25–28], blank.
Published: Spring 1931; printed by: Alexander H. Buchman and
Edwin A. Johnson, Cleveland, Ohio; 100 Numbered copies; at least
6 unnumbered copies; not intended for sale, approximately 10
copies sold for $1.00; bound in dark brown cloth, 19 cm. x 13.3
cm., stamped in gilt on front cover: POMES PENYEACH | BY | JAMES
JOYCE ; printed on white laid paper, 18.3 x 12.7 cm.,
watermarked: Georgian. [Slocum & Cahoon A26; JJB
A.IX.3]
Alexander
Buchman and Edwin Johnson of Cleveland, Ohio were students at
Case Western University when they set out to print this edition.
Using a Chandler and Price hand operated press, Buchman set the
type and Johnson did the printing of this unauthorized edition of
Joyce’s second book of poetry. They based the text on the
1927 Shakespeare and Company edition, correcting it according to
the errata tipped-in to that first edition. Quite possibly after
he and Johnson had already printed the sheets, Buchman wrote to
Beach asking her permission to put out an edition of 100 copies
in the United States where the text had not been copyrighted.
Beach denied his request and immediately issued the Princeton
University Press edition (1931). As Buchman later suggested, if
it “won the booby prize in having forced, apparently, Miss
Beach to rush out hers, we may have accomplished
something of
passing merit.”33
|
| 68 |
Two Worlds, September 1925 &
June 1926
Two Worlds: A
Literary Quarterly Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of
Nations, New York (September 1925–October 1927). “A
New Unnamed Work,” (September 1925) Vol. I: No. 1, pp.
45-54; (June 1926) Vol. 1: No. 4, pp. 545-60. [Slocum &
Cahoon C65]
(95K)
(88K)
|
|
Samuel
Roth’s literary and publishing interest in Joyce’s
work began as early as June 1921, when he asked Joyce when
Ulysses would appear in book form. But it was not until
September 1925 that Roth began to publish Joyce’s most
recent work (that would become Finnegans Wake), which had
just appeared in the Criterion in July. Initially with
simple covers and stark red lettering, the review proclaimed
itself Two Worlds: A Literary Quarterly Devoted to the
Increase of the Gaiety of Nations and boasted Arthur Symons,
Ezra Pound and Ford Madox Hueffer as contributing editors. Roth
was always more interested in the allure of his magazine than the
substance it contained. The text Roth published was inexcusably
corrupt and his disregard for the accuracy of the text persisted,
most injuriously with Ulysses. In exactly one year Roth
printed four of Joyce’s fragments of Work in
Progress in five issues of Two Worlds: September 1925:
I.5 (FW 104-25); December 1925: I.2 section 1 (FW 30-34.29);
March and June 1926: I.8 (FW 196-216) and September 1926: I.7 (FW
169-95), Roth paid Joyce at least one hundred dollars for the
first two installments.34
|
| 69 |
Two Worlds Monthly: Ulysses, July 1926
& October 1927
Two Worlds Monthly:
Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations, New York (July
1926–October 1927). “Ulysses,” (July 1926) Vol.
1: no. 1, pp. 93–128; (April 1927) Vol. 3: No. 1, pp.
101–16. [Slocum & Cahoon C68]
(149K)
|
|
With
Joyce’s attention focused on his ever-expanding work in
progress, from July 1926 to October 1927 Samuel Roth published an
unauthorized and bowdlerized version of Ulysses in his new
Two Worlds Monthly. Oddly, like The Little Review
before it, Roth only managed to reach Oxen of the Sun. On
27 December 1928, the Supreme Court of New York entered a consent
decree enjoining Roth from publishing any further work by James
Joyce. Nonetheless, flouting both the injunction against him
personally and the ban against Ulysses in the United
States, Roth first sold bound, two volume sets of the Two
Worlds Monthly, and then boldly pirated the 1929 Shakespeare
& Company printing. Adding irony to injury, the New York
Society for the Suppression of Vice seized copies of Roth’s
edition on 5 October 1929. And, worse still, it was Roth’s
bowdlerized edition that Bennett Cerf of Random House unwittingly
used to set up the first, 1934 American edition of
Ulysses; not only did this edition incorporate some of
Roth’s errors but added some new ones as well.35
|
70
&
71 |
Ibsen’s New Drama &
James Clarence Mangan, 1930
~ Harriet Shaw Weaver Collection
Ibsen’s New
Drama | [From The Fortnightly Review LONDON April 1900]. | BY |
James A. Joyce | [publisher’s device] | [rule] | ULYSSES
BOOKSHOP | 187, High Holborn, London, W.C.1 | [rule]
(37K)
(48K)
James Clarence
Mangan | [From St. Stephen’s, DUBLIN, May, 1902.] | BY |
James A. Joyce publisher’s device | [rule] | ULYSSES
BOOKSHOP | 187, High Holborn, London, W.C.1 | [rule].
(40K)
|
|
Contents: pp.
[i–xi], blank, (pp. [i–ii] pasted down); p. [xii],
colophon: 40 copies of this book | have been printed for |
Private circulation. | No. [copy] | No copy for sale.; p. [xiii],
title-page; p. [xiv], blank; p. [xv], half-title; p. [xvi],
blank; pp. 1–[37], text followed by printer’s
statement: Printed for The Ulysses Bookshop by H.D.C. Pepler. |
11:3:30 ; pp. [38–48], blank (pp. [47–48] pasted
down); 40 numbered copies printed, number of press and
out-of-series copies undetermined; no copies for sale; bound in
quarter faux-leather black cloth over
blue-purple
boards, 15 x 11.5 cm., printed on white label pasted to front
cover, 3.3 x 6.6 cm.: IBSEN’S NEW DRAMA | JOYCE ; printed
on cream-white wove paper, 14.2 x 11.2 cm.
&
Contents: pp.
[i–xi], blank, (pp. [i–ii] pasted down); p. [xii],
colophon: 40 copies of this book | have been printed for |
Private circulation. | No. [copy] | No copy for sale. ; p.
[xiii], title-page; p. [xiv], blank; p. [xv], half-title; p.
[xvi], blank; pp. 1–[16], text followed by printer’s
statement: 7:3:30 | Printed for The Ulysses Bookshop by H.D.C.
Pepler. ; pp. [17–24], blank (pp. [23–24] pasted
down); 40 numbered copies printed, number of press and
out-of-series copies undetermined, no copies for sale; bound in
quarter faux-leather black cloth over blue-purple boards, 15 x
11.5 cm.; printed on white label pasted to front cover, 3.3 x 6.6
cm.: JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN | JOYCE ; printed on cream-white wove paper, 14.4 x
11.3 cm.
In December
1930, Joyce and Beach were once again caught off-guard by another
pirate. Negotiations with James Wells, publisher of ALP,
were well underway to publish Joyce’s early essays,
“The Day of the Rabblement” and “Ibsen’s
New Drama.” In fact, Wells had set up the text and bought
the paper for what was supposed to be another deluxe edition,
when Joyce and Beach were given some disturbing news. Jacob
Schwartz’s Ulysses Bookshop in London had published
unauthorized editions of the essays under dubious circumstances.
Schwartz turned to the St. Dominic’s Press to print his
pirated editions. Hilary Douglas Clerk Pepler (1878–51)
founded the press in 1916. He was a close friend, fellow artisan,
and collaborator
of Eric Gill, the well-known writer, sculptor, engraver and
typographer whose famous engraving of the Bow illustrates the
1936 Bodley Head, the first English edition of Ulysses.
Pepler, who ran the St. Dominic’s Press until 1937, also
printed the works of George Bernard Shaw, John Drinkwater,
Augustus John, G.K. Chesterton and other writers variously associated with
Joyce.
|
| 72 |
A
Letter of Protest Against the Pirated American Edition
of Ulysses, 1927
Paris, 2nd February
1927. | text [one paragraph protest statement against Samuel
Roth’s unauthorized publication of Ulysses in Two Worlds
Monthly] | [167 signatures, some followed by titles or
pseudonyms, printed in three columns]. Broadside: one sheet
cream-white wove paper, 34.6 x 21.1 cm., printed in black; verso
blank.
(23.8M)
|
|
With
Joyce’s urging, Archibald MacLeish and Ludwig Lewisohn
wrote and circulated “An International Letter of
Protest” against Roth’s pirated edition of
Ulysses. Eventually they secured 167 signatures both from
friends as well as sometime adversaries, all prominent writers,
artists, critics, professors, scientists and philosophers,
including Albert Einstein, W. Somerset Maugham, Luigi Pirandello,
and Miguel de Unamuno. Beach mailed copies of this protest
against the Roth piracy to the signators and various press
agencies along with copies of Joyce’s calling card on which
he wrote, “with the compliments of.” The records of
this joint effort by Beach and Joyce to garner support for this
protest are part of Beach’s Shakespeare and Company
Collection at Firestone Library, Princeton University. Beach also
produced a French translation of this protest in the same format.
The English protest was also reprinted in The Humanist and
in transition. In spite of their efforts, ten more months
passed before Roth quit issuing Ulysses.
|
| 73 |
Our Exagmination Round His Factification
for Incamination of
Work in Progress, 1929 ~ Cyril Connolly Library
OUR EXAGMINATION |
ROUND HIS FACTIFICATION | FOR INCAMINATION | OF WORK IN PROGRESS
| BY | Samuel Beckett, Marcel Brion, Frank Budgen, | Stuart
Gilbert, Eugene Jolas, Victor Llona, | Robert McAlmon, Thomas
McGreevy, | Elliot Paul, John Rodker, Robert Sage, | William
Carlos Williams. | with | LETTERS OF PROTEST | BY | G. V. L.
SLINGSBY AND VLADIMIR DIXON. | SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY | SYLVIA
BEACH | 12, RUE DE L’ODÉON – PARIS | [rule] |
M CM XX IX. 194 pp.
(84K)
|
|
This is copy
number 66 of 96 copies of Beach’s last Joyce-related
publication. It is signed and inscribed by the publisher on
title-page: “For Cyril | with love | from Shakespeare who
was only | Lord Derby and Company | Sylvia Oct 26 1960.”
Samuel Beckett signed and inscribed his contributing essay:
“For | Cyril Connolly | very cordially | Sam Beckett |
Paris 1960.” Joyce had suggested the topic and title,
“Dante… Bruno. Vico.. Joyce” to his young
friend, and after reading the completed piece, complained only
that Beckett had not given sufficient attention to Bruno.
Beach’s contribution to the edition was the cover design:
“a circle formed by the names of the contributors turning
the subject ‘round his factification.’”36 The volume gathered together twelve
studies of Joyce’s “Work in Progress” fragments
by prominent members of the Joyce circle, most of which had
already appeared in transition.
|
| 74 |
Samuel Beckett, Murphy, 1938 ~ Richard
Ellmann Library
Murphy.
London: Routledge, 1938. News clipping photograph pasted to
inside front cover and holograph limerick by Joyce pasted to
front free endpaper.
|
|
Beckett’s difficulty in finding a
publisher for Murphy rivaled Joyce’s difficulty with
Dubliners. Beckett clipped the photograph of the
chess-playing chimpanzees from London’s Daily
Sketch, 1 July 1936. Before he had signed a contract with
the novel’s ultimate publisher, Routledge, Beckett sent
this Daily Sketch clipping to his agent, presumably with
the intention of reproducing it in some manner in Murphy.
Never incorporated into the first edition, Beckett pasted it
here, inside the front cover and opposite a limerick Joyce wrote
for him as a sign of his appreciation of the work. Thomas
McGreevy had introduced the young Beckett to Joyce in Paris in
1928 and the two remained close. Beckett described his early and
characteristic interactions
with Joyce: “There wasn’t a lot of conversation
between us. I was a young man, very devoted to him, and he liked
me. […] I was very flattered when he dropped the
‘Mister.’ Everybody was ‘Mister.’ There
were no Christian names, no first names. The nearest you would
get to a friendly name was to drop the ‘Mister.’ I
was never Sam. I was always ‘Beckett’ at
best.”37
Beckett signed and inscribed this copy of Murphy to
Richard Ellmann.
|
| 75 |
Final
Page Proofs of Finnegans Wake,
7 July 1938–16 January 1939
~ Paul and Lucie Léon
Collection
|
|
The
manuscript consists of the first 30 signatures of the first,
second and third settings of page proofs for the first edition of
Finnegans Wake (Faber & Faber). The recto of the first
leaf of each gathering of the signature is marked
“J.W.P” (for “Joyce’s Work in
Progress,” as neither the publisher nor the printers were
notified of the book’s actual title until 22 December 1938)
in the lower left margin. The printer’s stamp appears in
the lower right margins of those same pages: “FROM | Robert
MacLehose & Co. Ld | [date] | University Press | Anniesland.
Glasgow.” The paper is slicker and of lesser quality than
that used for the Faber & Faber trade issue of Finnegans
Wake, the measurements of the manuscript range from
approximately 23.2 x 14.6 to 24.6 x 15.7 cm.
1a) A copy of
the first setting of page proofs of pp. [001]–355,
signatures A–I, K–U and X–Z,38 dated 7 July–8 October
1938. This copy is heavily corrected and revised with numerous
additions, in green and black inks, a relatively small portion of
which are in Joyce’s hand; most of the instructions are in
the hands of several amanuenses, including Paul Léon and
George Joyce. There are also printers’ marks in pencil and
red crayon on many pages and the rectos of some first pages of
signatures are additionally stamped “REVISE” in the
margins in purple ink; and 1b) a duplicate copy of the first
setting of page proofs of pp. [001]–355,
unmarked.
2a) A copy of
the second setting of pp. [001]–272, signatures A–I
and K–R, dated 20 November–9 December 1938. This copy
is unmarked, except for p. 003 and 260–72 (see textual
collation below); and 2b–d) three duplicate copies of page
proofs of pp.
257–72, all unmarked.
3a) A copy of
the second setting of pp. 273–355, signatures S–U and
X–Z,39 which
are undated but were most likely set in early December 1938, of
which only pages 273–308, 312 and 353 are revised and
heavily corrected, including instructions regarding leading and
kerning of marginalia and footnotes (see textual collation
below), in red and black inks, with printers’ notes and
markings on most pages in pencil and orange crayon; 3b–d)
three duplicate copies of page proofs of pp. 273–320,
signatures S–U, undated, unmarked; 3e) one duplicate copy
of page proofs of pp. 321–52, signatures X–Y,
undated, unmarked; and 3f–h) three duplicate copies of page
proofs of pp. 253–55, partial signature Z, undated,
unmarked.
4) A single
copy of the first setting of pp. 353–496, signatures Z,
2A–2E and 2H,40 dated 4–16 January 1939,
some of the first sheets of signatures additionally stamped
“REVISE” in black ink, all unmarked.
5a) A copy of
the first setting of pp. 497–512, signature 2I, dated 16
January 1939, corrected and revised in green ink in several
hands; 5b) a duplicate copy of pp. 497–512, with most of
the emendations repeated from the first copy, plus further
overlay, primarily in Paul Léon’s hand, in green
ink, except for pp. 502 and 508 that are revised in black ink,
marked “RUSH” (presumably by the printers) in red
crayon on p. 497; and 5c) a further duplicate copy of pp.
497–512, unmarked, except for p. 512, which contains one
addition in green ink that is also present on 5a &
b).
6) A third
setting of pp. 305–20, signature U, dated 14 January 1939,
marked “RUSH” in blue crayon, with further
instructions regarding leading and kerning of marginalia and
footnotes, only on pp. 305–07.
7) Two notes
to the printer (one holograph attached to p. 282, probably in
Paul Léon’s hand, and another in typescript) both
concerning the accurate leading and kerning of marginalia and
footnotes in II.2.
None of these
manuscripts were reproduced in the James Joyce Archive. No
other duplicate copies of page proofs of Book I, Book II.3, II.4,
Book III nor Book IV are known to be extant. In the Weaver Joyce
Collection at the British Library there is a duplicate copy of
the first setting of page proofs of Book II.1 (BL 47477, fs.
299–319), with similar but not identical corrections and
revisions, in Joyce’s hand. Also at the British Library
(47477, fs. 319v–325v), there is a partial, unmarked copy
of the first setting of page proofs for Book II.2. Page proofs
were set for the remainder of Finnegans Wake and, although
they are not known to be extant, there are notes as well as a
typescript copy of corrections keyed to the first setting of Book
III and IV at the British Library (47478, fs. 232–38, 271
and 47488, fs. 238–40).
Textual
Collation: On the first setting of page proofs the majority of
emendations are grammatical and syntactical corrections,
primarily the addition or deletion of commas, dashes, hyphens,
periods, semi-colons and the altering of capitalization.
Nonetheless, some of the revisions are crucial to the text of
Finnegans Wake as published. Here we will focus on just
one related group of examples, the “thunderwords.” It
was only in 1935, nine years after he had written the first
thunderword to open “Work in Progress” in transition
1, that Joyce settled on the plan that the (by then 6)
thunderwords were to be exactly 100 letters long, but it was not
until these final page proofs that he achieved his plan.41 Like the first
thunderword that repeated “thunder” many times over,
the second one, which closes the Prankquen scene (FW
023.05–07), echoes thunder but also functions as a series
of leitmotifs on the themes in the tale of Grace O’Malley.
In green ink Joyce added “Perkodhuskurunbarggruauya”
to the start of the thunderword and so it was only at this late
stage that Joyce added the first 25 letters that brings the total
to 100. Not only does this addition carry over words for thunder
from the first clap, but Joyce inserted the crucial initial
allusions to the P/Q spilt, goddesses, ships, the riddle at the
castle door and her Celtic name “Graunya” in this
thunderword. The third thunderclap that announces HCE (FW
044.21–23) had been a mere 83 letters from the time Joyce
revised it for transition 2 in April 1927 until August 1938. Now
Joyce (again in green ink) altered
and added
“thappluddyappladdypkonpkot!” to the end of
this thunderword. This
17-letter addition, like the one discussed above, was primarily
intended to bring the number of letters up to 100, rather than
add any new thematic content. It repeats some of the basic themes
of the book and the thunderwords specifically: thunder, applause
and the fall. Joyce’s obviously concentrated effort to make
nine of the ten thunderwords conform to 100 letters is also
evident in the calculations that appear in the margin beside the
next, the fourth thunderword (FW 090.31-33). It is a three-lined
clap next to which someone counted the letters: “17 [+] 56
[+] 27 [=] 100.”
The marginal commentary in II.2 caused a fair
deal of problems for the printers as well. There were already complications with
the text on the galleys. Here the left-side marginalia is boxed in the text;
i.e., when there is no marginal text, the central text is left justified. All of
the added text was incorporated with remarkably few printers’ errors, but as
usual Joyce made his other rounds of additions and revisions all over the
margins of almost all the galley pages. A second (unrevised) copy of the
first set of galleys was properly printed with the text centered,
completely separated from the left marginalia. Joyce did not make
another round of additions on this set, but had an amanuensis,
probably Paul Léon, provide instructions for the correct
placement of the left marginalia to the printers, which usually
consisted in moving text up or down a few lines. The
printers’ problems with setting the text (and Joyce’s
problems with the printers) did not end with the galleys because
on the page proofs the left and right marginalia inadvertently
switched sides on the even numbered pages: what should be the
capitalized “right-side” marginalia was on the
left-side and the what should be the italicized
“left-side” marginalia was set on the right. This
problem was quickly solved, but the numerous instructions on
these page proofs confirm that Joyce had very exact requirements
concerning the placement of the marginalia beside specific text.
Nor were these the printers’ only problems. Naturally,
because of the odd format of the text in this episode, each new
addition had consequences for the
placement of
the footnotes. Finally, another set of page proofs was printed
and these final typographical problems were resolved.
The most notable emendation on
the second setting of proofs is the instruction on p. 003 to make
a new paragraph begin at “Sir Tristram,
[…].”
On 13 November 1938, Joyce
announced to Weaver that he had finished with “Work in
Progress.” Actually, the work was far from over. He worked
frantically to have the book published first on his
father’s birthday, 4 July 1938, but when it was clear that
that would be impossible, then by his own birthday, 2 February
1939, though that too, passed by. Just as with Ulysses,
Joyce was still writing parts of what became Finnegans
Wake as the printers were setting the text of his still
unnamed work. And, as usual, as Faber & Faber’s
Scottish printers returned set after set of proofs to him, Joyce
continued to make corrections and revisions. To help him with all
this work, he enlisted the aide of his family and friends and
most of the corrections of these proof pages are in fact not in
Joyce’s hand, but predominantly in Paul
Léon’s, George Joyce’s, Stuart Gilbert’s
and Eugene Jolas’s. In the midst of correcting the second
setting of the proofs, in mid-December, Joyce collapsed in the
Bois de Bologne from the strain of the work, but he persisted.
The corrections to the book continued after its publication,
Joyce and Léon compiled an errata list to Finnegans
Wake that Maria Jolas delivered to B. W. Huebsch in New York
in September 1940.
|
| 76 |
Finnegans Wake, 1939 ~ Paul and Lucie
Léon Collection
FINNEGANS | WAKE |
by | James Joyce | London | Faber and Faber Limited
(93K)
|
|
Contents: pp.
[i-ii], blank; p. [iii], colophon: This signed edition is limited
to | four hundred and twenty-five numbered copies | of which one
hundred and twenty-five copies | are for sale in Great Britain |
and three hundred copies | in the United States of America | This
copy is number [number written in ink]; p. [iv], blank; p. [v],
half-title; p. [vi], blank; p. [vii], title-page; p. [viii],
printer’s statement: Printed in Great Britain | by R.
MacLehose & Company Limited | The University Press Glasgow ;
p. [1], divisional title: I; p. [2], blank; pp. [3]–216,
text; p. [217], divisional title: II; p. [218], blank; pp.
219–399, text; p. [400], blank; p. [401], divisional title:
III; p. [402], blank; pp. 403–590, text; p. [591],
divisional title: IV; p. [592], blank; pp. 593–628, text.
Published: 4 May, 1939; £ 5 5s, $25; bound in red buckram,
26.3 x 17.7 cm., stamped in two panels in gilt on spine: [triple
rule] | FINNEGANS | WAKE | [triple rule] | JAMES JOYCE | [triple
rule] | [triple rule] | MCMXXX1X [triple rule]; printed on
cream-white wove paper, head trimmed and gilt, fore-edge and tail
untrimmed, unopened, 25 x 15.7cm. Issued in yellow cloth
slipcase.
Finnegans
Wake was finally published in May 1939 by Faber & Faber
in London and simultaneously by Viking in New York. This copy is
one of 425 numbered copies of the deluxe first edition. The
number of this copy has been erased and Joyce signed and
inscribed it on the day of publication in the blue-green ink he
used to sign all copies of this limitation: “To | that
Eurasian Knight, | Paul Léon, | with the thousand and |
one thanks of that most | distressful writer | James Joyce |
Paris | 4 May 1939.”
|
| 77 |
Porcelain Lion ~ Paul and Lucie Léon
Collection
Ceramic figurine
manufactured by B & G RJABENHAVEN with the label of Rouard,
[Paris], approximately 19.7 x 8 x 14 cm.
|
|
Although
Joyce never visited Norway, the home of his favorite playwright
Henrik Ibsen, he and Nora traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark in
August 1936 in part, to satisfy Joyce’s curiosity about
H.C. Earwicker’s Scandinavian background. A Swedish
translation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man had
appeared as early as 1921, and by the 1940s Joyce’s works
had been translated into Danish, Norwegian and Finnish. Lucie Léon mentions this
lion, along with a blue-and-white striped tie, as one of the many jocular gifts
Joyce sent Léon over the years.
|
| 78 |
Photograph of Paul Léon and Joyce,
[n. d.]
~ Paul and Lucie Léon Collection
|
|
|
| 79 |
Photograph of Paul Léon [n. d.]
~ Paul and Lucie Léon Collection
(44K) |
|
|
| 80 |
Lucie
Noel, James Joyce and Paul Léon, 1950
~ Richard Ellmann Library
JAMES JOYCE | AND |
PAUL LÉON | THE STORY OF A FRIENDSHIP | BY LUCIE NOEL | A
PROCEEDING OF THE JAMES JOYCE SOCIETY | DELIVERED IN PART AT THE
MEETING OF NOVEMBER 18, 1948. | [rule] | THE GOTHAM BOOK MART
>> NEW YORK. 63 pp.
(101K)
|
|
Lucie Noel
described her husband as “Joyce’s alter ego and
guardian in the practical details of everyday life,” a role
Léon gradually took on over the course of their
twelve-year friendship. In this tribute to both men, Noel took
pains to draw out an image of Paul Léon that went beyond
his roles as Joyce’s “paid secretary,” his
“lawyer,” “manager” or
“agent,” all titles Léon resented.
Nonetheless, she admitted, “Paul was there to handle every
situation, to smooth over all sorts of misunderstandings, to
protect Joyce from gate-crashers and intruders.” Paul and
Lucie’s guardianship of the author’s work and
interests persisted after Joyce’s death. As Noel recalls,
the contents of the Joyce’s flat at Rue des Vignes were
auctioned off on 7 March 1941. With financial assistance from
Noel’s brother, Alexis Ponisovsky, the Léons were
able to buy back almost all of Joyce’s first editions,
personal library and manuscripts and protected them from
confiscation during the German occupation of Paris. Noel recalls
her interaction with Gestapo officers who were hunting for the
valuable first editions of the writer for whom her husband, they
claimed, had “worked.” After Paul Léon’s
death in 1942, Lucie Noel continued to collect Joyce material,
adding to the collection that honored
their
friendship.
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| 81 |
Postcard from Joyce to the Léons, 1935
~ Paul and Lucie Léon Collection
(51K) |
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James and
Nora Joyce, Herbert and Claire Gorman to Paul and Lucie Léon, 10 August 1935
(postmark). APCS with pencil sketch
of a lion.
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| 82 |
Verve, 1938
Verve: An
Artistic and Literary Quarterly, Paris (December
1937-60).
“A Phoenix Park Nocturne,” (March-June 1938) Vol. 1:
No. 2. p. 26. [Slocum & Cahoon C93].
(189K)
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Verve
was the independent enterprise of Greek émigré,
publisher and art aficionado E. Tériade who issued this
eclectic and richly illustrated magazine irregularly from
1937–60. In its first number, which featured a cover by
Henri Matisse and works by Gide, Dos Passos, Bataille and Miro,
Tériade declared his mission: “Verve proposes
to present art as intimately mingled with the life of each period
and to furnish testimony of the participation by artists in the
essential events of their time. It is devoted to artistic
creation in all fields and in all forms. […] The value of
its elements will depend on their character, the selection of
them that has been made and the significance they assume through
their disposition in the magazine.” Verve created a
remarkable and vibrant image of artistic community by
juxtaposing, for example, medieval illuminations of
Petrarch’s “Triumphs” and the oil paintings and
engraving of Watteau with the letters of Cezanne to Zola and the
cut-outs of Matisse. Joyce contributed a passage to the second
number of Verve, that he dubbed “A Phoenix Park
Nocturne” and which became the opening of Finnegans
Wake II.1 (244–46). Here, a fragment from Joyce’s
“Work in Progress” joins the texts, paintings,
illuminations, lithographs and photographs that come together
around human, astronomical and spiritual cycles. The cover of the
issue is the work of Georges Braque and it included
Hemingway’s “The Heat and the Cold,”
Bataille’s “Heavenly Bodies,” Bosch’s
“The Conjuror,” early illuminations of the
“Apocalypses,” and a fourteenth century
manuscript of “The Twelve Mansions of
Heaven.”
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