The circumstances surrounding the National Library's acquisition of some key James Joyce manuscripts are shrouded in secrecy. The National Library of Ireland's acquisition of a large collection of James Joyce manuscripts at the end of May last year, for €12.6 million, was the most exciting development in Joyce studies for years, writes Terence Killeen
It followed the library's purchase, in December 2000, of a draft of the "Circe" episode of Ulysses and the auctioning in London in July 2001, to an unknown purchaser, of a draft of the "Eumaeus" episode of the novel. But the manuscripts bought by the library far surpass in size and importance those earlier sales. The papers, which have just been made available to researchers, will have scholars salivating for many years to come.
The vendors were Alexis Léon and his wife. Alexis Léon is the son of Joyce's friend and amanuensis Paul Léon, one of the writer's closest confidants in the latter years of his life. The sale was by private treaty, although negotiated through the London auction house Sotheby's. One of the consequences of this mode of sale is that publicity can be kept to a minimum; as the library's director, Brendan O Donoghue, points out, it is a different matter from a public auction, where it is in the vendor's interests to obtain maximum publicity for the impending sale.
In fact, to say publicity was kept to a minimum in this instance would be a considerable understatement: strenuous efforts were made to ensure that no word of the planned transaction leaked beyond the circle of those immediately involved. One reason for the secrecy was the risk of other institutions hearing about the matter and making a higher bid, in effect turning it into an auction.
Nevertheless, some rumours did get around, reaching the ears, among others, of the James Joyce estate, consisting of the writer's grandson, Stephen, and his wife, Solange. The estate tried to obtain details of the planned purchase under the Freedom of Information Act. The estate did this on the basis, as its solicitors wrote to Síle de Valera, the minister responsible at the time, that its function was "to protect the integrity of the works and reputation of James Joyce" and that it was "essential to ensure that the materials in question come from a legitimate source". It also stated that "certain materials" of Joyce "disappeared both during his lifetime and after his death" and referred to the "adverse, exceptional conditions" in France and elsewhere during the second World War.
The request for access was refused on grounds to do with ongoing negotiations and the disclosure of a position in a commercial transaction. In his memo recommending refusal, O Donoghue also urged that "the refusal should be stated in terms which do not even acknowledge that such a purchase is being contemplated".
Amid the general rejoicing at the library's acquisition, it was natural that considerable interest should focus on how Alexis Léon came to have these documents for so many years. It emerged that they had been in the possession of Léon's mother, Lucie, that they were stored with other material after her death, in 1972, and that Léon became aware of their existence only on sorting his mother's effects two or three years ago.
Interest was sharpened when it was realised, after the announcement of the purchase, that some of the manuscripts fitted very naturally into previously known documents. The State University of New York at Buffalo, for example, has long had part of an early draft of the "Oxen of the Sun" episode of Ulysses, written in six copybooks numbered by Joyce one, two, four, six, seven and eight. The library's purchase includes copybooks three, five and nine, completing the textual record for that draft stage.
Again, part of an early draft of the "Sirens" episode acquired by the library is the first half of a partial draft held in Buffalo. A newly acquired partial draft of the "Cyclops" episode is the second half of a draft also in Buffalo.
The very valid question that has arisen is how these documents, which were undoubtedly at one time together, came to be separated. There is a direct connection between the Léon family and the material now in Buffalo, just as there is between the Léon family and the material now in the National Library. The Buffalo documents were bought by the university at an exhibition and sale of Joyce manuscripts and other items by the Joyce family in Paris in 1948. The vast bulk of them had been rescued from Joyce's Paris apartment by Paul Léon. Joyce had left Paris hurriedly in December 1939, never to return. Léon had also left, but he returned to Paris in September 1940. The word "rescue" is appropriate, because the landlord of the Joyces' apartment, at 34 rue des Vignes, was planning to sell his tenants' property, quite illegally, at an auction in the Hôtel Drouot on March 7th, 1941.
Paul Léon, acting as always in the best interests of the Joyce family, made several surreptitious visits to the apartment before the auction and - at considerable risk to himself, as he was Jewish - brought away as much material as he could. He attended the "auction" and obtained some items he had not been able to extract previously. He also ensured that other documents belonging to Joyce and already in his own apartment were collected together for safekeeping. And, as is well known, he put important correspondence into a large envelope and brought it to the Irish Embassy to be forwarded to the National Library under a 50-year seal.
Not long afterwards, Léon was arrested by the Germans, interned initially near Paris, then sent to Silesia and shot dead, probably on April 4th, 1942. In these circumstances, for which tragic is a pathetically inadequate word, it fell to his widow, Lucie Léon (née Ponisovsky), to take care of the Joyce material. Lucie was notable in her own right: she later became a fashion writer for the New York Herald Tribune as Lucie Noel.
Fortunately, Lucie Léon has left a written memorial of what she did with the Joyce documents. It is contained in her book, James Joyce And Paul L. Léon: The Story Of A Friendship (New York: The Gotham Book Mart, 1950). She describes in considerable detail how she safeguarded the manuscripts. "We made a complete, detailed list of everything and by various channels Mrs Joyce eventually got everything back after the war was over."
This is the only published testimony by a participant as to what happened at the time. I am aware of no other evidence of comparable authority and clarity that would tend to undermine it. I doubt that it is possible to go beyond it, or behind it, except into a realm of speculation. Of course, Lucie Léon might have been mistaken; she might have overlooked documents that had been part of the rescued material, and these might have remained undiscovered until Alexis Léon finally got around to going through his mother's effects a few years ago.
But it is just a hypothesis; an equally valid one is that Joyce at some time gave these materials to Paul Léon as a token of appreciation; Léon would accept no payment for his work. In those circumstances, it would be quite customary for Joyce to give him manuscripts as a gesture of thanks. That some of the manuscripts have clearly been separated from others of which they once formed part is not necessarily a bar to this theory. Joyce's life was an odyssey without an Ithaca; in the course of his many wanderings, items might well have become separated from each other, and he might have picked up whatever lay to hand and passed them on. But again, it is only a hypothesis.
When I spoke to Alexis Léon in the library on May 30th last year, he stated categorically that the source of the documents he had just sold was unrelated to the source of the material now in Buffalo. It seemed likely that he was basing this certainty primarily on the statements in his mother's book, as nearly everything else he said on that occasion seemed to derive from that source.
It is possible other testimonyexists that might bring greater certainty to this matter. The National Library, while insisting it is sure the Léons legally owned the material, is still refusing to release all of the documents pertinent to the transaction, including the contract of sale. This position has been upheld by the freedom-of-information-request manager in the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. The refusal seems to be based on the possibility of legal action by the James Joyce estate, the view being, to quote the request manager, that "the release of the records relating to ownership could only facilitate such a challenge".
The suggestion is not that a challenge would be successful but that the State is entitled to do nothing that would make one easier to mount.
There are substantive reasons for the library's reticence. The concern about legal action is real: it is clear from the files that it was threatened. Very probably a court would order a discovery of all these documents in the context of a legal action, but it would do so only if such a move was a genuine application for the purposes of a legal challenge; it would be unlikely to look kindly on a fishing application - that is, an attempt to use a court process to obtain information that a certain party would just like to know.
This is the kind of deadlock perhaps most familiar from industrial disputes, and it seems just as difficult to unravel. None of it changes the basic fact that the impossibility of knowing what exactly might have happened back in the 1940s, coupled with the explicit testimony of Lucie Léon, means that any legal challenge to the library's purchase faces formidable obstacles. One might also feel it was incumbent on those to whom the materials were returned after the war to satisfy themselves fully that they had recovered all of it; if this was not properly done at the time, it is practically impossible to rectify it now.
It is painful to revisit an episode such as the terrible fate of Paul Léon. That pain is enhanced by the musings of an anonymous scribe in the Phoenix magazine, who has seen fit to talk of "looting" in the context of the recovered manuscripts. The only relevant "looting" is the action of the Joyces' Paris landlord in illegally selling off the contents of his tenants' apartment. But to talk of "looting" in relation to a man who was himself a victim of the Nazi atrocity, and who had declined all payment for his many services to Joyce during his lifetime, is indeed an obscenity. No such allegation has been made by the James Joyce estate.
When the National Library of Ireland decided to acquire these documents, it entered the big league, where the stakes - and the risks - are very high. It would be nice if everyone could agree about all this troubled heritage and if harmony could reign supreme. But it is unrealistic to imagine this is always possible; it is in the nature of the case that issues around Joyce should be contentious. This is part of what a living heritage means, and Joyce's heritage is nothing if not living, as we have been again sharply reminded.
