OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

Philadelphia Joyce exhibition a hit in Dublin

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Jon Harvey

PHILADELPHIA — Dublin was the setting for James Joyce’s "Ulysses," continental Europe the author’s home, but an Irish American financed its publication.

John Quinn, a New York lawyer and patron of the arts, paid James Joyce $1,200 for the unfinished handwritten manuscript of the text that would go on to be named the most influential English-language book of the 20th century by The Modern Library.

In 1924 illness forced Quinn to sell his impressive collection, including the Joyce manuscript. Bibliophile, book dealer and collector Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach bought the autograph manuscript for $1,975, a sum considered scandalously low by Joyce. Rosenbach offered to purchase the typeset plates as well, but must have misspelled the book: Joyce, playing on the meaning of Rosenbach’s name in German, wrote to a friend:

Other Articles You Might Like

Sign up to our Daily Newsletter

Click to access the login or register cheese