Dr Clare Hutton discusses the women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel in a new BBC Arena documentary. ‘James Joyce’s Ulysses’ will air Wednesday 7th September at 9pm on BBC Two. Also available on BBC iPlayer shortly after broadcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001bvp2
One hundred years after its publication, this film reveals the tawdry, shocking, poetic, uplifting and gloriously kaleidoscopic humanity of James Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses.
The documentary celebrates the crucial role of women, including Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, a lesbian couple who risked being sent to jail for printing obscene material in America; Sylvia Beach, the American in Paris, who published the first edition from her bookshop Shakespeare and Co; Harriet Shaw Weaver, the English heiress who gave Joyce over one million pounds; and Nora Barnacle, Joyce’s wife, muse and the model for his character Molly Bloom.