The original manuscript of James Joyce’s Ulysses traveled to Dublin this summer to be exhibited at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle. Entitled “Ulysses in Hand: The Rosenbach Manuscript,” the exhibit was organized by the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia.
Ulysses takes place on one day – June 16, 1904 – in Dublin. In fact, Joyce is said to have claimed that if the city were ever destroyed it could be rebuilt using the novel as a guide. Yet Joyce’s handwritten draft of the novel has never been in Ireland until now. Joyce wrote Ulysses while living in Trieste, Zurich, and Switzerland. In 1919, he sold the yet unfinished manuscript to John Quinn, a New York attorney whose patronage of the arts in Ireland is well known. In 1924, Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, a book dealer, purchased the manuscript of Ulysses at auction for his personal collection. The Dublin exhibit is the first time the manuscript has been outside of the States since Joyce mailed it to Quinn.
The exhibit will run until October 1, 2000. ♦
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