Ireland’s Literary Renaissance.

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Creator

Ernest Boyd.

Title

Ireland’s Literary Renaissance.

Coverage

New York

Publisher

Alfred A. Knopf

Date

1922

Description

Provenance: Stanislaus Joyce, with a presentation inscription by his brother, James.

James Joyce didn’t appear in the original 1916 edition of Ernest Boyd’s classic survey—a virtual ‘Top 100” of the Irish literary revival. In this 1922 “New Revised Edition,” however, Boyd celebrates Joyce’s “daring and extraordinary genius, and his great experiment, Ulysses.” Ever sensitive to perceived injustice, Joyce must have felt redeemed, because he makes a gift of this new edition to his brother and ally, Stanislaus.

As much as any object in my Joyce collection, or any I’ve seen, this copy brings me closer to the human Joyce, not the writer hiding behind “silence, exile, and cunning.” I can imagine the impact he expected this book to have on his devoted brother, and he signs his name as he did for his family alone, “To Stannie / Jim / Paris / 6 September 1923.”

Source

Alexander Neubauer