Two New Ulysses Working Drafts

Joyce Studies Annual, Volume 12, Summer 2001© 2001 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, Texas 78713-7819 The author thanks Hans Walter Gabler, Samuel B. Slote and Michael Groden for their help and suggestions; also the staff of Christie’s New York and Sotheby’s London. 1 The gavel prices were $1,400,000 (“Circe”) and £780,000 (“Eumaeus”), but the buyer also pays the auctioneer a commission—as does the seller. Christie’s had expected a gavel price of $800,000 –$1,200,000 for “Circe,” and Sotheby’s had expected a gavel price of£800,000 –£1,200,000 for “Eumaeus” (“Unknown Draft Chapter of Ulysses to be Sold at Sotheby’s,” Sotheby’s Press Release, p. 1). 2 In addition to the “Circe” and the “Eumaeus” drafts now extant in two states, there are “early draft fragments” of “Cyclops”—“in the manner of sketches [which] do not lead directly to the fair copy”—and “fragments of early drafts at two levels” of “Oxen of the Sun” (Hans Walter Gabler, “Textual Notes,” “Ulysses”: A Critical and Synoptic Edition [New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984], 1742, 1744). Six working drafts of Ulysses are extant in one state: a complete final working draft of “Proteus”; a fragmentary early draft of “Sirens”; and a complete early draft of “Nausikaa”; and the three chapters in the Rosenbach Manuscript which are not fair copies but working drafts, “Wandering Rocks,” “Ithaca” and “Penelope.” I use Gabler, “Textual Notes,” pp. 1729–1753 passim, supplemented by Michael Groden to the author, email 22 July 2001, and Hans Gabler to the author, email 29 July 2001. Two New Ulysses Working Drafts ARNOLD GOLDMAN Two previously unknown complete working drafts of chapters from Ulysses were recently sold at auction within seven months of each other. On 14 December 2000, a draft of “Circe” was sold at Christie’s New York for $1,546,000 to the National Library of Ireland, and on 10 July 2001 a draft of “Eumaeus” was sold at Sotheby’s London for£861,250 ($1,213,540) to a private purchaser.1 Until these sales, no Ulysses manuscript had been put on the market for forty years. The new drafts bring to four the number of chapters of Ulysses where two working drafts, complete or partial, are known to exist prior to the Rosenbach Manuscript’s fair-copy chapter.2 The new working drafts thus greatly increase the extent to which the pre faircopy development of chapters may be ascertained or speculated— private purchaser permitting in the case of “Eumaeus.” They contain 4 ulysses working drafts 3 Letters of James Joyce Vol. III, ed. Richard Ellmann (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), 40. See James Joyce’s “Ulysses”: The John Quinn Draft Manuscript of the “Circe” Episode (New York: Christie’s, 2000). 4 Samuel B. Slote, J-JOYCE:842, j-joyce@lists.utah.edu, 10 October 2000. More particularly , “the first half is directly after V.A.19 (and follows the portions of the episode that were fully drafted at that level). The second half of NLI has very few revisions on it yet it covers the part that’s only drafted in fragmentary form on V.A.19. I take this to mean that there was an intervening draft of the second half of the episode which was very heavily revised and then immediately recopied in a neat form; the NLI draft would thus have the redrafted version of the second half. There are too many gaps between NLI and Rosenbach for Rosenbach to have directly followed NLI, hence the missing draft” (Samuel B. Slote to the author, email, 27 July 2001). 5 “National Library of Ireland Acquires Circe Episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses for $1,546,000 at Christie’s New York,” Christie’s press release, 14 December 2000. 6 A draft of “Scylla and Charybdis” vanished in transit to the University of Buffalo, which purchased it along with other drafts in 1959. implications both for future editions of Ulysses and for the study of the development of the novel, not least genetic study. Joyce sent the working draft of “Circe” now owned by the National Library...