ESSAY:With Bloomsday on Monday Brendan Lynchcelebrates the woman who first published 'Ulysses'
IS IT TIME for Sylvia Beach to be celebrated? "Beachday instead of Bloomsday? Perhaps it's the least we could do, considering all that Sylvia Beach accomplished for Joyce," agreed Ken Monaghan, nephew of the author of Ulysses.
"Without her and her Shakespeare and Company bookshop, Ulysses would not have seen the light of day for many years. Sylvia was a major encouragement to Joyce in those crucial early years in Paris. She provided financial support and introduced him to many influential figures. Sadly, after playing such a pivotal role in his life, she wasn't repaid as she should have been." Joyce commenced Ulysses in 1914. Work was erratic until 1918, when the Americans Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap agreed to serialise it in the Little Review. Convinced that this would lead to the publication of Ulysses in both Great Britain and the US, Joyce redoubled his efforts on the book.
But his hopes were dashed when four issues of the magazine were banned by US authorities. Early in 1921, the American ladies faced a legal action by the Society for the Prevention of Vice. They escaped with small fines on the understanding that they would publish no more episodes of the book. Joyce's hopes of early publication were dashed, until another unlikely American benefactor came to his rescue.
Sylvia Beach was the daughter of an American Presbyterian minister. In 1919, at the age of 32, she opened a bookshop in Paris at 8, rue Dupuytren, which she later transferred to 12 rue de l'Odéon. Shakespeare and Company distributed little expatriate literary periodicals, offered readings by literary figures such as TS Eliot and Paul Valéry, and soon became established as a library, post office and confessional for local and expatriate literati.
The American first met Joyce on July 11th, 1920, at the home of the poet André Spire. Joyce enquired what she did and she told him about Shakespeare and Company. "The name seemed to amuse him, and a charming smile came to his lips. Taking a small notebook out of his pocket and, as I noticed with sadness, holding it very close to his eyes, he wrote down the name of the 'firm' and its proprietoress, and the address. He said he would come to see me", Beach later wrote in her memoir Shakespeare and Company (1956).
Sylvia was enchanted by Joyce's voice, though she noted that he invariably omitted the "h" in "th" sounds and pronounced book as "b--k"; She attributed his exceptionally clear enunciation to the fact that he had been an English language teacher for many years: "One felt also that he was more attentive to language than most people, and perhaps loved it more".
Newly arrived in Paris, Joyce needed friends and encouragement. And an income to support his wife and their two children. He was also preoccupied with completing Ulysses. He didn't miss the opportunity to seek out his new acquaintance and to explore her bookshop.
The proprietor recalled that Joyce walked up her steep little street the following day: "He was wearing a dark blue serge suit, a black felt hat on the back of his head, and on his narrow feet tennis shoes that had no doubt once been white. Joyce was always a bit shabby, but his bearing was so graceful and his manner so distinguished that one scarcely noticed what he had on".
Sylvia took a liking to the Dubliner. She introduced him to such influential customers as Ernest Hemingway, Robert McAlmon, Scott Fitzgerald and the French critics Valery Larbaud and Louis Gillet. It was to Sylvia, exhausted and depressed, that Joyce repaired following the American court case a year later emanating from the earlier serialisation in The Little Review. "In a tone of complete discouragement he said, 'My book will never come out now'. It occurred to me that something might be done and I asked: 'Would you let Shakespeare and Company have the honour of bringing out your Ulysses?' He accepted my offer immediately and joyfully," Beach recalled.
According to author Sisley Huddleston, who wrote extensively of literary Paris, Margaret Anderson should also share the credit for Sylvia's decision. The bookseller had been inspired by Anderson's courage in publishing the original extracts: "She used to call my attention to these fragments of the Little Review with real admiration both for the author and the editor," wrote Huddleston.
Sylvia's habitual migraine was nothing to the headaches induced by ceaseless proof-reading and the effort of deciphering Joyce's cryptic and convoluted corrections. The publishing of Ulysses taxed all her resources but she stuck to her task. At 7am on February 2nd, 1922, Joyce's 40th birthday, she met the conductor of the Dijon express, who brought the first two copies of the book from the printer, Maurice Darantière. A quarter of an hour later, she presented the first copy to Joyce. She placed the other in the window of Shakespeare and Company, which was thronged until evening by excited viewers.
Three weeks later, Joyce commemorated Sylvia in a poem after Shakespeare:
Who is Sylvia, what is she
That all our scribes commend her?
Yankee, young and brave is she
The west this grace did lend her
That all books might published be.
Then to Sylvia let us sing
Her daring lies in selling.
She can sell each mortal thing
That's boring beyond telling.
To her let us buyers bring.
Sylvia Beach published Joyce's Pomes Penyeach in 1927. And, two years later, a volume of essays on the yet to be published Finnegans Wake. But the writer's devotion to his art proved stronger than loyalty to friends. Even to one who had helped him as much as Sylvia Beach.
The author had assigned her world rights to Ulysses but their relationship cooled in 1932, when she was reluctant to reprint the book. Joyce negotiated with other publishers and shortly afterwards, Sylvia released all claims to Ulysses. Joyce subsequently told Paul Leon: "All she ever did was to make me a present of the ten best years of her life".
Ken Monaghan met Sylvia Beach at the 1962 opening of the Joyce Tower in Sandycove, Dublin. "She was a diminutive and animated lady. My mother, May - James's sister - got on very well with her and always spoke highly of her afterwards. Without Sylvia, my uncle would not have found a publisher at that time and, possibly, for many years. Sadly, he didn't show her the gratitude she deserved, though they made it up in later years. I don't think we can ever discuss Ulysses without mentioning Sylvia Beach. For me, every Bloomsday is also a Beachday."
Brendan Lynch is a freelance journalist and author. His last book was Parsons Bookshop. At the Heart of Bohemian Dublin 1949-1989 (Liffey Press).