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.
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
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
Harriet Shaw Weaver
In November 1915, after Joyce
's novel had been rejected by various publishers, HSW
offered to publish it. But it was difficult for her to find a printer who was not frightened by the prospect...
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...
Occupation
Harriet Shaw Weaver
Writer and suffragist Iris Barry
, summarizing a general admiration for HSW
on the part of Soho writers (Pound, Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, Violet Hunt
, and others), coined the phrase, the lion-hearted Miss Weaver who...
Occupation
Sylvia Beach
Joyce
was launching a lawsuit against Samuel Roth
at this time for illegally pirating Ulysses in the United States. He stated in a deposition against Roth that the book was not his property but...
Occupation
Harriet Shaw Weaver
In August 1921, while she waited for Ulysses' appearance, HSW
obtained the rights to all of Joyce
's publications: Chamber Music from Elkin Mathews
, and Dubliners and Exiles from Grant Richards
. Joyce...
Occupation
Harriet Shaw Weaver
Ulysses grossed £2,608 and netted £1,637. Joyce
received royalties of £1,636.
Lidderdale, Jane, and Mary Nicholson. Dear Miss Weaver. Viking.
234, 462
Occupation
Sylvia Beach
SB
offered to publish James Joyce
's Ulysses, a proposition he gratefully accepted.
Beach, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. Harcourt, Brace.
47
Occupation
Harriet Shaw Weaver
The relevant clause in his will states: I leave all my manuscripts to Harriet Shaw Weaver and direct that she have sole decision in all literary matters relating to my writings published and unpublished.
Lidderdale, Jane, and Mary Nicholson. Dear Miss Weaver. Viking.
305
Occupation
Sylvia Beach
SB
handed James Joyce
the first copy of Ulysses on his fortieth birthday; she placed the second copy in the window of Shakespeare and Company
.
Beach, Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company. Harcourt, Brace.
84
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...
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
Occupation
Harriet Shaw Weaver
Largely through the efforts of HSW
, Ben Huebsch
printed James Joyce
's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for the Egoist Press
, as the firm's inaugural publication.
Lidderdale, Jane, and Mary Nicholson. Dear Miss Weaver. Viking.
128
Occupation
Dora Marsden
In January 1916 Weaver went ahead with the decision to publish Joyce
's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man after gaining Marsden's approval (though she would have continued independently if approval had...
