Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
James Joyce
-
Standard Name: Joyce, James
Irish exile JJ
, hailed by Yeats
as a new kind of novelist even before his first novel was published, became one of the leading practitioners of modernism. As well as poems, a play, and a volume of short stories, he produced three important novels, from the last of which he put out several separate sections long before the whole appeared. Joyce encountered obstacles to publishing almost all his books, raised by censors both official and self-appointed. Without the tireless patronage of Harriet Shaw Weaver
and Sylvia Beach
, his last two books might never have been published at all.
Rather than being a historical opus about life in the heyday of Paris, this is an engaging mixture filled with sketchy and witty recollections. When William Bradley
and Alfred Knopf
approached SB
more than...
Publishing
Sylvia Beach
SB
published with Harcourt Brace
the Joyce
portions of her memoirs as a Christmas gift book entitled Ulysses in Paris.
Fitch, Noel Riley. Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties. W. W. Norton.
412
Textual Features
Sylvia Beach
The memoir reads like a homage to the men and women who enriched her life personally, and the world of letters generally. SB
's generosity and goodwill made her censor much about her difficulties with...
Mathews, Jackson, and Maurice Saillet. Sylvia Beach 1887-1962. Mercure de France.
cover and prelims
Textual Features
Sylvia Beach
Reviewing the collection, Kathryn Hughes
found SB
's usual style characterised by a kind of polite chirpiness, with even faintly slangy expressions—jazzed up, my stars, corking—marked by scare quotes, and Beach's...
Family and Intimate relationships
Sylvia Beach
SB
was hunting down a copy of Paul Fort
's Vers et prose, and was directed to Monnier's bookshop. She found the shop's owner surprisingly warm and friendly. Adrienne declared that she like[d] America...
Occupation
Sylvia Beach
This was the first American bookstore in Paris. It became a focal point of French and American literary activities. In the summer of 1921 the bookstore moved to 12 rue de l'Odéon.
Beach, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. Harcourt, Brace.
60
For...
Wealth and Poverty
Sylvia Beach
Eleanor Beach
fully supported her daughter's dream of owning a bookstore. She worked with her broker to get SB
the necessary $3,000 (24,810 francs) in August 1919 in order to start the business.
Fitch, Noel Riley. Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties. W. W. Norton.
Joyce
was having trouble getting his latest work, Ulysses, published because of the public outcry against it and the obscenity laws that penalized both the printer and the publisher of material deemed obscene. Harriet Weaver
Friends, Associates
Sylvia Beach
Beach and Joyce
had a bet to see whether Bernard Shaw
would purchase a copy of Ulysses. Beach lost when Shaw wrote to say that she knew little of [his] countrymen if she thought...
Occupation
Sylvia Beach
Harassed by customers and friends for their copies, SB
withdrew the window-copy until shipments arrived from the publisher
in Dijon. She and her assistant mailed out the books to subscribers in the United States...
Occupation
Sylvia Beach
Joyce
wanted a simple, cheap-looking booklet, so Herbert Clarke
produced something that looked, even Clarke himself thought, regrettably pharmaceutical.
Beach, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. Harcourt, Brace.
174
Clarke persuaded Beach to put out a better version with boards, but this would...
DB
arrived in Paris with letters of introduction to Ezra Pound
and James Joyce
, and she soon came into contact with a great number of the US expatriates living there at this time, including...
Textual Features
Diana Athill
Many aspects of this story are clearly close to the way DA
saw her own life, though characters are different (the protagonists' parents, for instance, are not her own). Sixteen-year-old Meg Bailey is shy, easily...
