4. James Joyce

(1882-1941)

James Joyce wrote Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). With these literary works, he is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Fame, however, did not come easy. He faced numerous rejections from publishers, suppression by censors, attacks by critics, and misunderstanding by readers. Not to be put off, this very Irish of writers issued a challenge about his work: 'I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.'

Books on display include: Richard Ellman, James Joyce. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983; James Joyce, Ulysses: A Reader's Edition. London: Picador, 1997; Cyril Pearl, Dublin in Bloomtime. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1969. DA 995 D75 PB35; A First Draft Version of Finnegans Wake. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1963; Carol Loeb Shloss, Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake. London: Bloomsbury, 2003; Assignates & Boomeringstroms - and Extract from Finnegans Wake. Auckland: The Pear Tree Press, 2004.

The photograph is of Sylvia Beach and James Joyce at Shakespeare and Company, Paris, c. 1923.