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.
Among SB
's various friendships made in Paris, that with James Joyce
was the most formative. He was lucky not to lose his friendship with Nancy Cunard
when she tried to pin him down over...
Other Life Event
Samuel Beckett
SB
's uncle, by marriage, was not Harry Sinclair but his brother, William A. Sinclair
, father of Beckett's youthful love, Peggy.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (in 2007) calls Harry an uncle of...
Textual Features
Samuel Beckett
The publisher's blurb, talking about a new independent spirit at work and humour, the last weapon against despair, was remarkably percipient.
Federman, Raymond, and John Fletcher. Samuel Beckett. University of California Press.
13
Like Beckett's other early prose works in English, these stories are deeply Joycean
Intertextuality and Influence
Samuel Beckett
He felt that the second world war had transformed his relation to writing, driving him inward for his subject-matter, away from the Joyce
an play of meaning towards the dearth or even the failure of...
Occupation
Sylvia Beach
SB
and James Joyce
signed a contract for her to publish his Pomes Penyeach, a baker's dozen to be sold for one shilling.
A baker's dozen numbers thirteen, one more than there were pennies...
Wealth and Poverty
Sylvia Beach
SB
struggled for most of her life to be financially independent. At an early date she wrote: I must get at something profitable. My uselessness utterly depresses me.
Fitch, Noel Riley. Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties. W. W. Norton.
32
Her career as a bookshop owner...
Occupation
Sylvia Beach
James Joyce
asked SB
to sign an official contract over the publication rights of Ulysses, a decade after the verbal agreement between them to have Shakespeare and Company
publish it.
Fitch, Noel Riley. Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties. W. W. Norton.
309
Beach, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. Harcourt, Brace.
204
Textual Production
Sylvia Beach
Though the essays were solicited and overseen by Joyce
, SB
did much of the editorial work and designed the cover.
Beach, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. Harcourt, Brace.
SB
published Our Exagmination Round his Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, a collection of essays on Joyce
's Finnegans Wake.
Fitch, Noel Riley. Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties. W. W. Norton.
283
Publishing
Sylvia Beach
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...
