Category: A History in Ten Objects

Read the tenth article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. This blog series is running in conjunction with Women and the Making of Ulysses, an exhibition on show now at the Harry Ransom Center. In this week’s instalment, Clare Hutton explores Joyce’s inspiration for Ulysses famous last chapter, in which Molly Bloom reflects upon her day. ‘None of the female characters are as clever and accomplished’, argues Hutton, ‘as the quartet of female publishers and editors who worked so hard to make the achievement of Ulysses possible: Margaret Anderson, Sylvia Beach, Jane Heap and Harriet Shaw Weaver’.

Read the ninth article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. This blog series is running in conjunction with Women and the Making of Ulysses, an exhibition on show now at the Harry Ransom Center. In this week’s instalment, Clare Hutton explores Helen Joyce’s memoir of the Joyce family, noting its importance to a feminist history of Ulysses.

Read the eighth article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. This blog series is running in conjunction with Women and the Making of Ulysses, an exhibition on show now at the Harry Ransom Center. In this week’s instalment, Clare Hutton explores what it was like to but put on trial for publishing Ulysses, remembering the contributions of Jane Heap and Margaret Anderson to the novel’s notoriety.

Not only did Savitsky agree to do the translation she also offered Joyce and his family the opportunity to live in her apartment, free of charge, an opportunity which Joyce accepted with alacrity.

Dr Clare Hutton (Loughborough University)

Read the seventh article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. This blog series is running in conjunction with Women and the Making of Ulysses, an exhibition on show now at the Harry Ransom Center. In this week’s instalment, Clare Hutton explores Joyce’s relationship with Ludmila Bloch Savitsky (1881–1957), who did much to introduce Joyce to French literary circles by authoring the first French translation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Heap was one among a circle of gay women who supported Ulysses (others include Margaret Anderson, Sylvia Beach, and Adrienne Monnier). That they did so can be attributed to a belief in the power of Joyce’s vision, a willingness to engage in championing libertarian causes, a collective desire for greater candour about sexual preferences and sexual experience, and broad support for the fight against censorship.

Dr Clare Hutton (Loughborough University)

Read the sixth article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. This blog series is running in conjunction with Women and the Making of Ulysses, an exhibition on show now at the Harry Ransom Center. In this week’s instalment, Clare Hutton explores the belief in artistic freedom and sexual expression that led Jane Heap to defend Ulysses in the courtroom.

Weaver did not obviously leave her signature on Joyce’s oeuvre but it is clear that, without her generosity, both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake might never have been completed.

Dr Clare Hutton (Loughborough University)

Read the fifth article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. In this week’s instalment, Clare Hutton (Loughborough University) explores Harriet Shaw Weaver’s role as patron of Joyce’s literary endeavours.

This tiny ledger, meticulously compiled by Sylvia Beach, records subscriptions for the first edition of Ulysses. It serves as a potent reminder of the necessary administrative labor and organization going on behind the scenes at Shakespeare and Company.

Dr Clare Hutton (Loughborough University)

Read the fourth article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. In this week’s instalment, Clare Hutton (Loughborough University) explores James Joyce’s interactions with Sylvia Beach, who agreed to publish Ulysses at the risk of controversy and personal expense.

May Joyce was a vivid presence in the life of her eldest son, and was, for a time, the center of his emotional world. 

Dr Clare Hutton (Loughborough University)

Read the third article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. In this week’s installment, Clare Hutton (Loughborough University) explores James Joyce’s relationship with his mother, May, who held together the family and demonstrated unwavering confidence in her son’s creative abilities.

Joyce never visited the U.S. and had little sense that his work was being published by radical lesbian feminists who were committed to free speech, and causes such as anarchism, female suffrage, and non-participation in World War I.

Dr Clare Hutton (Loughborough University)

Read the second article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. In this week’s installment, Clare Hutton (Loughborough University) explores the determination and generosity of Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, editors of an avant-garde American periodical dedicated to the publication of Modernist literature. Subsequent blogs will be released fortnightly, each exploring an object significant to the making of Ulysses.

“Ulysses would have been a very different book had Sylvia Beach not been so generous in her support…”

Dr Clare Hutton (Loughborough University)

Read the first article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses. In this week’s installment, Clare Hutton (Loughborough University) explores the determination and generosity of Sylvia Beach, the Parisian bookseller who first published Ulysses in 1922. Subsequent blogs will be released fortnightly, each exploring an object significant to the making of Ulysses.