James Joyce
-
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.
Milestones
2 February 1882
JJ
, Irish novelist, playwright, and poet, was born at 41 Brighton Square, Dublin, the eldest survivor from his mother's twelve births and three miscarriages.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
23
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
6 April 1907
JJ
published his first book, a collection of poems entitled Chamber Music.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press.
Parker, Alan. James Joyce: A Bibliography of His Writings, Critical Material, and Miscellanea. F. W. Faxon.
18
March 1918
JJ
's novel Ulysses began serial publication in the Chicago-based Little Review, edited by Margaret Anderson
and Jane Heap
.
Marek, Jayne E. Women Editing Modernism: "Little" Magazines & Literary History. University Press of Kentucky.
11, 87
Parker, Alan. James Joyce: A Bibliography of His Writings, Critical Material, and Miscellanea. F. W. Faxon.
41
14 February 1921
The obscenity trial against JJ
's Ulysses began in New York, with John Quinn
acting for the Little Review. The jury found the publication obscene, and its serialisation was discontinued.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
503
2 February 1922
Ulysses was published in Paris by Shakespeare and Company
on JJ
's fortieth birthday. Joyce gave Harriet Shaw Weaver
Copy No. 1 of the de luxe edition; he gave Copy No. 1000 to his wife Nora
.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
525
January 1923
Harriet Shaw Weaver
reported in a letter to John Slocum
that 499 copies of James Joyce
's Ulysses were seized at Folkestone harbour under the Customs Act of 1867; only one copy, sent to London, escaped seizure for obscenity.
Craig, Alec. The Banned Books of England and Other Countries. George Allen and Unwin.
79
Thomas, Donald. A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England. Frederick A. Praeger.
303
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
505-6n
10 March 1923
JJ
began work on probably the first identifiable fragment that went into his third major work, the highly experimental and linguistically inventive novel and central text of modernism which was later known as Finnegans Wake.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
551
1927-1937
Eugene
and Maria Jolas
serialised Finnegans Wake in transition, an international quarterly for creative experiment. It appeared under the title Work in Progress.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
589, 714
October 1928
JJ
's Anna Livia Plurabelle, a fragment of Finnegans Wake (1939), was published in book form in New York by Crosby Gaige
.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
795
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
November 1932
JJ
learned that Ulysses would not be prosecuted in England, and an agreement was struck with John Lane
to publish. Because of printers' protests against some passages, the book did not appear until 1936.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
653
6 December 1933
Ulysses by JJ
was cleared of obscenity charges by an American court in New York; this resulted in British authorities quietly overlooking its publication in England.
Thomas, Donald. A Long Time Burning: The History of Literary Censorship in England. Frederick A. Praeger.
303
Parkes, Adam. Modernism and the Theatre of Censorship. Oxford University Press.
xi
Craig, Alec. The Banned Books of England and Other Countries. George Allen and Unwin.
79
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
666
4 May 1939
After seventeen years of writing and revising, JJ
's Finnegans Wake was published in its entirety in London by Faber and Faber
and in New York by Viking Press
.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press.
Parker, Alan. James Joyce: A Bibliography of His Writings, Critical Material, and Miscellanea. F. W. Faxon.
105
13 January 1941
JJ
, Irish novelist, died at Zurich in Switzerland.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
741
1960
In the Caedmon Records Literary Series recording of JJ
's Ulysses, soliloquies of Molly and Leopold Bloom were expurgated without any indication of the fact; an instance of the way unofficial censorship haunted the novel.
Craig, Alec. The Banned Books of England and Other Countries. George Allen and Unwin.
79
Early June 2004
Commemorations planned to celebrate the centenary of JJ
's Ulysses were threatened by the refusal of his grandson and sole surviving relative, Stephen Joyce, to give copyright permission.
Johnson, Andrew. “Copyright row threat to ‘Ulysses’ centenary”. The Independent on Sunday, p. 16.
16
Biography
2 February 1882
JJ
, Irish novelist, playwright, and poet, was born at 41 Brighton Square, Dublin, the eldest survivor from his mother's twelve births and three miscarriages.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press.
23
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.