The Joyce Papers 2002, c.1903-1928.
Early material; drafts etc. of Ulysses; proofs etc. for Finnegans Wake; the Joyce 2002 Papers fall into three broad categories: early material; notes and drafts for Ulysses; and proofs and additions to proofs for Finnegans Wake. In all there are over 500 manuscript pages and some 200 pages of proofs, together with some typescripts.
| Main Author: | Joyce, James, 1882-1941 |
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| Summary: |
Early material; the early material consists of a series of notes and translations made by Joyce of Dante's 'Inferno'. It is probable that these were compiled while Joyce was a student. There is an early notebook from the years 1903 and 1904 which provides some fascinating glimpses into the young Joyce during his stay in Paris before his mother's death. The Finnegans Wake proofs fill some gaps in the record documenting the process of getting that work into print. – Collection List No. 68 : The Joyce Papers 2002 / compiled by Peter Kenny, Assistant Keeper. National Library of Ireland, 2002. Ulysses; it is the materials for Ulysses, however, comprising notes, notebooks and early drafts, which make this collection extraordinary. According to Professor Michael Groden, General Editor if the James Joyce Archive, and a leading authority on Joyce's manuscripts, the newly acquired Ulysses manuscripts will immediately be seen as 'the most important collection of early drafts for Ulysses in the world and will instantly catapult the National Library, and Ireland, into a major center for the study of James Joyce.' In support of that view Professor Groden points out that two of the notebooks include the earliest surviving sets of notes, and that there are drafts of no fewer that nine separate episodes of Ulysses; six of these represent hitherto completely undocumented stages of development, five of them are earlier than anything available up to now for the episodes concerned; and one is earlier than any draft of Ulysses that was previously known to survive. The handwriting in these manuscripts matches Joyce's known handwriting from the different periods in his life. His method of writing his notes and his drafts, and his use of coloured crayon lines and Xs to signal his use of material in later drafts, are perfectly consistent with other surviving documents. The manuscripts themselves have been rarely touched over the years, and for the most part they are in very good to excellent physical condition. Joyce first referred to 'my new novel Ulysses' in mid-1915. In October 1916 he said that he had almost completed the first part as well as parts of the middle and later sections. However, the record of his work during these early years is very sketchy – almost no documents were known to exist until now. This adds immeasurably to the significance of the new collection. – Collection List No. 68 : The Joyce Papers 2002 / compiled by Peter Kenny, Assistant Keeper. National Library of Ireland, 2002. |
| Format: | Manuscript |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: |
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| Notes: |
On the 30th May 2002 the National Library of Ireland announced that it had acquired a large collection of previously unknown James Joyce manuscripts, notebooks and workbooks. Given that James Joyce is second only to Shakespeare in terms of the number of published studies of his work, any new discovery relating to Joyce and his work is an important world literary event. The scale of the collection, which has now been fully listed, is such that will enable Joycean scholars either to reassess or fundamentally to revise their work. The Ulysses material in particular will inspire new avenues of investigation and research, reinvigorate debates on the composition of the text, and add crucial evidence for arguments on the definitive text. – Collection List No. 68 : The Joyce Papers 2002 / compiled by Peter Kenny, Assistant Keeper. National Library of Ireland, 2002.
Related Materials:
Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Ireland.
Additional items held by the Department of Manuscripts include the manuscript of the 'Circe' episode of Ulysses (MS 35,958), which the Library acquired at auction in December 2000;
Related Materials:
Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Ireland.
Additional items held by the Department of Manuscripts include the Pre-'Work-In-Progress': Finnegans Wake drafts (MS 41,818), which the Library acquired at auction in March 2006;
Related Materials:
Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Ireland.
There is another collection of James Joyce papers held in the Department of Manuscripts, The James Joyce-Paul Léon Papers, which were opened to the public in 1992. This collection includes correspondence between James Joyce, Paul Léon, family, friends, associates and admirers mainly from 1930 to 1940;
James Joyce (1882-1941) was born in Dublin on 2 February 1882. Apart from some months spent in Paris in late 1902 and early 1903, he lived for the most part in Ireland until he reached the age of 22. In June of 1904, however, he met the Galway woman with whom he would spend the rest of his life, Nora Barnacle, then working in Finn's hotel in Dublin. By October they had resolved to leave Ireland together and sailed away to make a new life on continental Europe. Thereafter, Joyce spent his life between various European cities, most notably the three that are listed after the conclusion of the final episode of Ulysses – Trieste, Zurich and Paris. Between his departure from Ireland with Nora at the end of 1904 and his death in 1941, Joyce returned to Dublin on only a few occasions and not at all after 1912. – Preface to A Joycean Scrapbook : From the National Library of Ireland / compiled by Katherine McSharry. Dublin: National Library of Ireland, 2004.
Groden, Michael. "The National Library of Ireland's New Joyce Manuscripts: A Statement and Document Descriptions. James Joyce Quarterly vol. 39, no. 1 (Fall 2001), pp.29-51,
Physical description:
1
box.
Finding Aids:
Finding aid available: NLI Manuscripts Collection List No. 68.
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| Provenance: |
The materials acquired by the Library were the property of Mr and Mrs Alexis Léon, and were acquired through the agency of Sotheby's, London. Mr Léon's parents, the late Paul and Lucie Léon, were close friends of Joyce from 1928 onwards. Mr and Mrs Alexis Léon decided that the National Library of Ireland should be given first refusal on the new collection because they hoped it thus would come to the Library to which Mr Léon's father had donated the extensive collection of James-Joyce-Paul Léon letters in 1941. – Collection List No. 68 : The Joyce Papers 2002 / compiled by Peter Kenny, Assistant Keeper. National Library of Ireland, 2002. |
