“Your friend if ever you had one”– The Letters of Sylvia Beach to James Joyce

363 Pages·2021·31.693 MB·English

by  Ruth Frehner and Ursula Zeller

“Your friend if ever you had one” – The Letters of Sylvia Beach to James Joyce
European Joyce Studies
General Editor
Geert Lernout (University of Antwerp)
Editorial Board
Scarlett Baron (University College London)
Kasia Bazarnik (Jagiellonian University)
Valérie Bénéjam (University of Nantes)
Teresa Caneda (University of Vigo)
Ronan Crowley (University of Antwerp)
Anne Fogarty (University College Dublin)
Onno Kosters (Utrecht University)
John McCourt (University of Macerata)
Erika Mihálycsa (Babes-Bolyai University)
Fritz Senn (Zürich James Joyce Foundation)
Amanda Sigler (University of Virginia)
Sam Slote (Trinity College Dublin)
Dirk Vanderbeke (Friedrich Schiller University of Jena)
Dirk Van Hulle (University of Oxford)
Founded by
Christine van Boheemen-Saaf, in association with Fritz Senn
volume 31
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ejs

Figure 1 Sylvia Beach in the 1920s
Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Special Collections,
Princeton University
“Your friend if ever you had
one” – The Letters of Sylvia
Beach to James Joyce
Edited by
Ruth Frehner
Ursula Zeller
LEIDEN | BOSTON
With the generous support of the Irish Embassy in Berne
Cover illustration: collage by Ursula Zeller and Ruth Frehner. Letters and cards of Sylvia Beach: Sylvia Beach
Estate, Fred Dennis; courtesy of Zürich James Joyce Foundation. Shadow Figures of Sylvia Beach and James
Joyce: Courtesy of Sylvia Beach Papers, C0108, Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections,
Princeton University Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Beach, Sylvia, author. | Frehner, Ruth, editor. | Zeller, Ursula, editor.
Title: “Your friend if ever you had one” : the letters of Sylvia Beach to James Joyce /
edited by Ruth Frehner, Ursula Zeller.
Other titles: Letters of Sylvia Beach to James Joyce
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill Rodopi, [2021] | Series: European Joyce studies,
0923–9855 ; volume 31 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021015530 (print) | LCCN 2021015531 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004427037 (hardback ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9789004427044 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Beach, Sylvia—Correspondence. | Joyce, James,
1882–1941—Correspondence. | Joyce, James, 1882–1941 Ulysses. | Léon, Paul L. (Paul Léopoldovitch),
1893–1942?—Correspondence. | Publishers and publishing—France—Correspondence. |
Booksellers and bookselling—France—Correspondence. | LCGFT: Personal correspondence.
Classification: LCC Z305.B33 A3 2021 (print) | LCC Z305.B33 (ebook) | DDC 070.50944—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015530
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015531
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 0923-9855
ISBN 978-90-04-42703-7 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-42704-4 (e-book)
Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink,
Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be
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This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
in memoriam Hans E. Jahnke
∵

Contents
Acknowledgements xi
“Who is Sylvia? What is She?” xiii
Editors’ Introduction xv
Letters 1921-1939 xxvii
List of Figures xxxiii
The Letters of Sylvia Beach to James Joyce or Paul Léon 1921-1939
Introduction to the 1920s 3
Ruth Frehner
Letters 1921-1929 17
Introduction to the 1930s 124
Ursula Zeller
Letters 1930-1939 142
Appendix A: Chronology of Major Events 1917-1941 275
Appendix B: Survey of Correspondence between Sylvia Beach and
James Joyce or Paul Léon 282
Appendix C: Survey of Correspondence re Frankfurter Zeitung Affair 305
Appendix D: Joyce’s Book Orders through Sylvia Beach 309
Appendix E: Currencies: Historical Values and Their Equivalent in 2020 311
Bibliography 313
Index 322