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Journal of Modern Literature 26.1 (2002) 1-16



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The National Library of Ireland's New Joyce Manuscripts:

A Narrative and Document Summaries

University of Western Ontario

The list of new email messages on that day in late September 2001 seemed unremarkable: the usual barrage of promises of better porn and lower debt, plus a few items of real correspondence. Those did not appear to be particularly important. Among them was one from Noel Kissane, someone whom I didn't know, who identified himself as the Keeper of Manuscripts at the National Library of Ireland. He asked if he could call me to talk about the manuscript of the "Circe" episode of Ulysses that the National Library had purchased the previous December and also about "recent associated developments." I knew a little about the "Circe" acquisition—it was a draft that Joyce had sent "as a curiosity" 1 in April 1921 to John Quinn, who was purchasing the entire Ulysses manuscript in episode sections as Joyce finished each one; the Library had bought it for one and a half million dollars at a Christie's New York auction. I hadn't seen the manuscript when it was exhibited in London, Dublin, or New York before the auction, however, and I had only skimmed the Christie's sale catalogue, 2 so I knew very little about it. I couldn't imagine what I could tell Mr. Kissane that he didn't already know or couldn't learn from someone else in much greater detail.

He didn't want to talk about "Circe" at all, it turned out, but about the associated developments. Some other Joyce manuscripts had surfaced, he told me in confidence, and the owner had given the National Library an exclusive opportunity to buy them. Would I consider coming to London in the next month or so to look at these manuscripts and report on them to the Library? My first reaction was to balk—this was two weeks after September 11; I had just canceled an end-of-October commitment to talk on a panel at the Modernist Studies Association conference in Houston because I didn't want to fly there; and I had moved from London, Ontario, to Toronto four months earlier [End Page 1] and was only a few weeks into my new routine of commuting for three days each week to teach my classes at the University of Western Ontario. The thought of flying at all, and of leaving home for London, Ontario, from Monday to Wednesday, then for London, England, from Thursday to Sunday, and then for London, Ontario, again the next Monday to Wednesday was distinctly unappealing. As I hesitated, Noel Kissane said that he had prepared a short checklist of the documents and asked if he could at least email it to me so I could see what he was talking about. To that request, it was easy to say yes.

I wondered what these documents might be, of course. Two manuscripts for Ulysses had surfaced in the past two years, and both were sold at auction for huge sums. One was the "Circe" draft, the National Library's new acquisition; people were surprised when this manuscript surfaced, but we quickly realized that we had been aware of its existence all along because of Joyce's reference to it in his letter. The second manuscript, on the other hand, was completely unexpected. It was a draft of "Eumaeus" (its cover says "Eumeo"), one that, unlike the "Circe" draft, hardly anyone inside or outside Joyce studies knew had ever existed. Its provenance was less clear than that of the "Circe" draft. A French diplomat and writer named Henri Hoppenot possessed the document—he knew Adrienne Monnier and perhaps bought the manuscript from, or maybe was given it by, either her or Sylvia Beach—and after his death a French book dealer acquired it. Sotheby's in London auctioned it for that dealer in July 2001. An anonymous private collector bought it for over £850,000...

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