University of Virginia Library

Grant Richards to James Joyce
by
Robert Scholes

A good deal is known, now, about James Joyce's difficulties in getting Dubliners published. (A capsule summary of the pre-publication printing history of the book appeared in "Some Observations on the Text of Dubliners: 'The Dead'" in Studies in Bibliography, XV, 191 ff.) The publication of these letters from Richards to Joyce is intended to be not so much another re-hashing of those difficulties as a shift in focus from Joyce, the "hero," to Richards, the "villain."

Thomas Franklin Grant Richards was one of those small publishers who were so influential in British literary developments around the turn of the century. Along with Richards, one thinks of Elkin Mathews, John Lane, Maunsel & Co. (in Ireland), and Martin Secker (who became Richards's partner and through whose permission these letters are here published) as men who had a direct hand in the shaping of a new literature.

Richards himself was the first publisher of G. K. Chesterton, Alfred Noyes, and John Masefield. He also published G. B. Shaw, Frank Morris, Richard Le Galliene, Ronald Firbank, the Sitwells, and Arnold Bennett. A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems came out under his imprint. And his life as a publisher was complicated by two of the most "difficult" writers of the early twentieth century — Baron Corvo and James Joyce.

Richards has recounted much of his publishing experience in his book Author Hunting (1934, reprinted in 1960 by Martin Secker's Unicorn Press — and on the remainder lists last year). But his two most difficult authors — Joyce and Corvo — are not mentioned in that book. The reasons for Richards's reticence are interesting. He may, as Martin Secker suggests in a prefatory note, have been planning another book on them; or he may simply have been unhappy with his recollections of the Joyce and Corvo episodes. Certainly his letters to Joyce must have given him little reason for pride. In them are revealed the

almost pathological carelessness and confusion of his publishing establishment — lost or missing manuscripts seem the rule, rather than the exception. And these letters must certainly have reminded Richards of an unhappy time in his own life. His first marriage and his first bankruptcy — both, apparently, melancholy affairs — lent a rather gray tint to this stage of his career. Much of his caution in dealing with Dubliners, as a matter of fact, stemmed from his precarious financial situation at the time.

With some knowledge of his situation in mind, we may find Richards less of a "villain" than he is usually thought to be by those who know only Joyce's side of the story. He was, himself, only nine years older than Joyce and had not quite turned thirty-two when Joyce approached him with Dubliners in 1904, though he had then been an independent publisher for eight years. Curiously enough, Richards had once been himself a victim of literary censorship. In 1895 William Haddon, publisher of The Annual, wrote his printer about a story of Richards, saying, "There is a lot of 'Devil' and 'God' and the rest of it. I want it knocked out of it" (recounted in Richards's Memories of a Misspent Youth, 1933, p. 319). When it came to knowledge of the priggishness of the London literary world at that time, Richards had intimate and personal knowledge. In addition to his own experience in 1895, he had carefully followed the uproar over George Moore's Esther Waters (see Chapter VI of Author Hunting). His advice to Joyce in 1904 was not unsound in terms of the temper of the times. That Richards could publish in 1914 what he would not publish in 1904 is more an indication of a change in the literary climate than of any change of heart in Richards.

Only Richards's side of the correspondence is published here. A minimal running commentary has been supplied, including some information on Joyce's replies, but the material provided here is no substitute for the documents themselves and is not intended to be. Joyce's part of the correspondence is, unfortunately, scattered. Part has been published in Herbert Gorman's James Joyce, 1939 (hereafter referred to as Gorman), and another part in Stuart Gilbert's Letters of James Joyce, 1957 (hereafter referred to as Gilbert). Some fragments are quoted in Richard Ellmann's James Joyce, 1959. Some letters are still unpublished. Presumably all those letters not in Gilbert will be included in Ellmann's forthcoming additional volume of Joyce's letters. All the letters published here are quoted in full, only the addresses being omitted and the salutation and close somewhat compressed. The subscription has been run-in on the same line with the end of the text and the signature omitted. Richards's address for letters 1 and 2 was

48 Leicester Square, London, W. C. For letters 3 through 38 it was 7 Carlton Street, Regent Street, London, S. W. For letters 39 to 47, 8 St. Martin's Street, Leicester Square, London, W. C.

1.

I shall hope to write to you about your poems in the course of the next few days. Faithfully yours,

2.

I must apologise for not having sooner answered your letter with reference to the manuscript of your verses. I regret to say that it is not at present possible for me to make any arrangements for the publication of the book; but I may say that I admire the work exceedingly and if you would leave the matter open for a few weeks it is possible that I might then be able to make you some offer. The manuscript, I regret to say, has by some mistake been packed up with some furniture of mine that has been warehoused and it is not easy at the moment for me to get at it, so that in any case I shall be glad if you can leave the whole question over for a short time. Faithfully yours,

3.

With reference to your collection of verses, "Chamber Music", which you kindly submitted to me through Mr. Arthur Symons, and which unfortunately got mislaid during my illness last year and changing houses, I write now to say that in spite of careful search I am unable still to lay my hand on the manuscript. Could you, do you think, reconstruct it from material in your possession? If you could do this and would care to submit it again to me for the firm with which I am now associated, I should hope to be able to make you on its behalf some offer for the publication of the work. I am exceedingly sorry for the inconvenience to which I fear this delay has subjected you. Believe me, my dear Sir, Very faithfully yours,

4.

Mr. Grant Richards would be glad to know Mr. Joyce's present address as he is anxious to send him a letter; he thinks it likely that Mr. Joyce will have left Via S. Nicolo before this. [unsigned]

5.

I now enclose the letter which I wrote to you some days ago and sent to Mr. Arthur Symons in the hope that he might know your address. Faithfully yours,

6.

My great admiration for "Chamber Music" and Mr. Symons's advocacy of it make me want to arrange for its publication, but I cannot now, when the public seems to care increasingly little for verse by new writers, take on my shoulders the whole cost of its production. If you care to bear some part of that cost I shall certainly be pleased to publish the book and shall be proud to have it on my list. Believe me, my dear Sir, Faithfully yours,

7.

I won't send you back your poems unless you tell me to again; and for this reason: if in this new business of Mrs Grant Richards's we make enough success with our first books, we shall be more able to make experiments with those which are not distinctly of a commercial nature.

Of course if you would like to have the manuscript back so as to send it to another publisher, do not hesitate to say so. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Very faithfully yours,

8.

Oc [sic] course I cannot for a moment complain of your having sent your manuscript to Messrs. Constable, and I hope for your sake that that firm will decide to publish the poems; you could not be in better hands. If they do not, then I shall still hope that we may be able to do something with them here.

It will give me great pleasure to have the opportunity of reading "Dubliners". Sincerely yours,

9.

I have to acknowledge the safe receipt of your MS. "Dubliners". Faithfully yours,

10.

I am sorry that you should have had to write again about your manuscript. I have read it myself on behalf of this house, and think very highly of it indeed; but I do not see that it has any of those selling qualities for which a publisher has naturally to look. Judged, indeed, from that standpoint, it has ["all" crossed out in ink here] the qualities which do not help a book: it is about Ireland, and it is always said that books about Ireland do not sell; and it is a collection of short stories. However, I admire it so much myself, and it has been so much admired by one or two other people who have read it, that we are willing to take the risk of its publication on the following terms:—

We will pay you a royalty on the published price of copies sold of ten per cent, thirteen copies counting as twelve, paying, however, no royalty on the first five hundred copies. And we should ask you to undertake to give this house the refusal of all your future work over a period of five years from the date of publication of "Dubliners" on the following terms: a royalty of ten per cent on the published price of the first thousand copies sold; of fifteen per cent on the next 3,000; and of twenty per cent thereafter. This last clause will give us some encouragement to push your work even if in itself the sale is not satisfactory, for if, as I do not doubt, you do good work in the future, we should be sure of having the opportunity of its issue.

If these terms are agreeable to you I will send you a detailed agreement for signature, and I would ask you to send us the one or two other stories that you mention. I may say that we should make the book a very attractive one.

With regard to the verse manuscript, I would suggest your leaving this matter over until after the publication of the stories. However, that is, of course, a point for you to decide. We would not wish to stand in your way if you had the opportunity of issuing it satisfactorily through some other house. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

11.

Very many thanks for your letter. I am glad that you have decided to accept the terms this house was able to offer you, and I hope that we may be able so to publish your books in the future as to encourage a relation entirely satisfactory both to you and to us.

You speak about your financial position. Will you not tell me what you are doing and what your prospects are?

I think we shall publish "Dubliners" at five shillings, in a rather slim crown octavo volume, carefully printed in heavyish type on a rather yellow paper. As for the binding, I purpose making it very plain indeed, but in this matter, and indeed in the whole matter of the book's appearance,

we should like to know your wishes. Perhaps you can either send us a book or tell us of one which has pleased you, and that will give us some idea of what you would like. The book will come out in May or June or in September.

I enclose a draft agreement. If you will sign it and return it I will send you a duplicate duly signed by Mrs. Grant Richards.

Will you have the kindness to write a brief description of the book, of some 200 words in length, to be used as material for catalogues, advertisements, and so on? We could describe it here, of course, but we should not be likely to do so as justly as you would. It will, of course, be a description written as from the publisher and not from the author. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

12.

Many thanks for "Two Gallants" safely received. [unsigned]

13.

Many thanks for your letter of February 28th.

You tell me that your prospects mainly consist in the chance of getting money enough from your book or books to enable you to resume your interrupted life. Here the commercial factor is of course the dominant one. One naturally dislikes to intrude that view too strongly, but it is not the best work which pays the best, as you know. Still, if you were to write a novel — a novel that might in some sense be autobiographical — and write it as well and as vitally as you have written these short stories, I believe that you might score a considerable success both of esteem and of sale.

I enclose your copy of the agreement for "Dubliners" signed by Mrs. Grant Richards. In view of what you say I think you may take it for granted that we shall not publish the book until September. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

14.

I should be glad if you could now let us have the remaining story for "Dubliners"; you told me you thought it would be ready in March, and we are now sending the book to the printer. [unsigned]

15.

I am sorry, but I am afraid we cannot publish "The Two Gallants" as it stands; indeed, the printers, to whom it was sent before I read it myself, say that they won't print it. You see that there are still limitations imposed on the English publisher! I am therefore sending it back to you to ask you either to suppress it, or, better, to modify it in such a way as to enable it to pass. Perhaps you can see your way to do this at once.

The same thing has to be done with two passages marked in blue pencil on page 15 of "Counterparts".

Also — you will think I am very troublesome, but I don't want the critics to come down on your book like a cart load of bricks — I want you to give me a word that we ["I" crossed out in ink] can use instead of 'bloody' in the story "Grace". Sincerely yours,

16.

Either I must have expressed myself carelessly in my letter to you or you must have misunderstood what I said. I told you what the printer had said not because I cared about his opinion as his opinion, or cared a bit about his scruples, but because if a printer takes that view you can be quite sure that the booksellers will take it, that the libraries will take it, and that an inconvenienly large section of the general public will take it. You have told me frankly that you look to your future being helped by your literary work. The best way of retarding that result will most certainly be to persist in the publishing of stories which — I speak commercially, not artistically — will get you a name for doing work which most people will regret. You will understand that it is not my view which has to dictate our conduct in this matter. It is both the effect which your persistence would have on the commercial possibilities of the book, and the effect that the publication of that book as it now stands in manuscript would have on our business generally. It would be easier to explain to you why I think you are taking a wrong course when you refuse either to make any alterations or to suppress the stories if I could have the opportunity of talking the matter over with you. I hope, however, that this letter will show you that from

the point of view of policy there are two sides to the matter, and that you will see your way to alter the position you have taken up. In any case, please put on one side the idea that you seem to have, that I am at all interested in our printer's conscience. Sincerely yours,

17.

Many thanks for your letter. If I had written your stories I should certainly wish to be able to afford your attitude; but as I stand on the publisher's side, I feel most distinctly that for more than one reason you cannot afford it. You have written a book which, whether it sells or whether it does not, is a very remarkable and striking piece of work; certainly it is what you wanted it to be — a chapter of the moral history of your country. But a book is not written nowadays to any real effect until it is published. You won't get a publisher — a real publisher — to issue it as it stands. I won't say that you won't get somebody to bring it out, but it would be brought out obscurely and in such a way would be certain to do no good to your pocket and would hardly be likely to get into the hands of any but a few people. After all, remember, it is only words and sentences that have to be altered; and it seems to me that the man who cannot convey his meaning by more than one set of words and sentences has not yet realized the possibilities of the English language. That is not your case.

The man who read your stories for us was a man whose work you are likely to know, Filson Young. He was as struck with them as I was myself. I told him a few days ago of our fears and showed him the passages, and I have also shown him your letters on the matter, and although the opinion of other people may not influence you at all, yet I can tell you that he thoroughly agrees with me about the impossibility of publishing the work as it is. But he is very anxious, as I am, that the book should not pass from our list. I hope, therefore, that you will think the whole matter over again. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

18.

I will try to be more categorical. First, though, let me see if I cannot remove a misconception that exists in your mind as to our attitude. My admiration for your book is a thing entirely apart, and necessarily so, from my conviction as to what is wise or not wise for us to publish. Personally I prefer the word 'bloody' in the places in which it occurs to any word you could substitute for it since it is, as you say, the right word; on the other hand a publisher has to be influenced by other considerations. Personally

I have no objection to the other stories we have discussed, although I may say that in their present form they would damage their publisher. We are, for various reasons into which I need not go at this distance, peculiarly liable to attack. However, you concede the alteration of the troublesome word in "Grace"; well and good. You concede it in "The Two Gallants"; you concede it in "Ivy Day in the Committee Room"; leave it in "The Boarding House".

In "Counterparts" I have no feeling about the allusion to 'two establishments [']; the other phrase must really come out.

On consideration I should like to leave out altogether "The Encounter".

"The Two Gallants" should certainly be omitted. Perhaps you can omit it with an easier mind since originally it did not form part of your book.

The difficulties between us, therefore, narrow themselves down, since you have come some little way to meet me, and I hope now they will disappear entirely. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

19.

An answer to your last letter to me has been delayed owing to my taking a brief Whitsuntide holiday.

Heaven knows that we want to do everything that you want us to do, but for various reasons, which it would take too long to write down, our hands are to some extent tied. If this business were mine it would be a different thing.

But I did notice very clearly "An Encounter" when I first read the manuscript, and we were at that time told by our adviser that we ought to get you to omit it. I was in doubts about it, but came to the conclusion that it was unnecessary to do so. But matter which to a large section of the public will seem questionable is cumulative in its effect, and when I came to read "The Two Gallants" I saw that to publish the book with that story as you had written it would be to draw attention to other things in the book which would otherwise pass. Perhaps you can re-write "The Two Gallants" — although I don't suppose you will. Still, in producing one's first book it is just as well to be guided by somebody's advice, and I don't honestly think that you could have a more competent adviser on the matter than I am. We cannot publish the book as it stands; that I am afraid is clear. We can only publish it with the alterations or omissions that so far I have suggested. If it were I who was publishing the book, admiring it as I do, I might be willing to bear any attack, organized or otherwise. But an attack on this house at the present moment, and on such a subject, would be extremely damaging.

Your letters make me wish to meet you, and they make me wish to have your book as you have written it among my own that I value; but

they cannot blind me to the impolicy of the attitude you are taking up. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

20.

You are under a misapprehension: your book did go to the printers'; they set up a page, which happened to be a page of "The Two Gallants"; they kicked at its nature and it was that that made me read ["it" crossed out] the story, which I had not done previously, and that made me go into the whole question.

I think that if you read the letters that have passed between us you will see exactly what we are willing to put our name to and what we dare not put our name to. It remains, therefore, for you to decide.

Turn specially to the letter of May 16th, which was written in answer to certain concessions on your part. Presumably you are still willing to make those concessions, as detailed in paragraph 1.

In "Counterparts" there is a phrase that must come out if we are to publish the book.

We should like to omit entirely "An Encounter", but if you will give way on the other points we will give way on this.

"The Two Gallants" must be omitted unless you can re-write it in the sense suggested in my letter of June 7th.

Unfortunately as things stand at present you cannot buy one critic of importance, to say nothing of two; sometimes I wish one could! Also, the habit of multiple reviewing has gone out.

I am very happy to hear of your engagement in Rome. In Rome at least you seem to be nearer to London, and more likely to come over; anyhow, I am more likely to be in Rome than I am to go to Trieste. And whatever happens to this book, which is giving you and me the writing of so many letters, I hope you will give us the opportunity of reading the novel. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

21.

Your manuscript is presumably the only one with which you are dealing at the present moment; it is one of several dozen with which we are dealing and about which we are corresponding, and although when I started

writing to you I remembered perfectly well the different points, some of them now are less clear in my memory. However, I have looked again at that part of the manuscript that we have here and at your letters, and it seems to me that the best course will be for you to make the alterations to the extent that you are willing to make them and in the sense suggested by me, and return the manuscript to me, when, if I understand your concessions aright, the book will no doubt be able to go to the printer. With this object I am sending back to you to-day by registered post the balance of the manuscript.

In "Counterparts" you say you are disposed to modify the passage to which I specially drew attention, but you will not omit it. Of course I do not know how far your modification will go; in any case, I should not care to take the responsibility of cancelling any passage with my own pen.

As to "The Two Gallants", you say that I knew it to be in preparation. But I had no idea of its character. Return it, however, with the omission that you volunteer to make and I will see whether, in the hoped for event of the book going to the printer, it can be included, as I should certainly prefer, knowing your views.

In brief: when I get your stories back I will re-read the whole manuscript and will judge it then afresh. Perhaps, too, with your modifications and read in their proper context, the passages may seem to me less likely to attract undesirable attention.

You speak of the spectre of the printer, which you thought you had laid, rising again in my letter of the 14th. This is unjust. I referred to the printer in answer to a passage in your letter of June 10th, in which you spoke of the transit of the manuscript to his care having been delayed by copious and futile correspondence, in order to show you that the manuscript had been to the printer. You speak of his combining the duties of an author with his own honorable calling, and ask how he comes to be the representative of the public mind, and how he happened to alight magically on the particular passages that he did; and proceed to say that the printer is simply a workman hired by the day or by the job for a certain sum. That he should have alighted on that particular passage is a pure coincidence; your other points in this connection will be answered possibly by suggesting that you look inside any book, where you will find a printer's imprint. This im [sic] necessary. If a book is attacked as indecent the printer suffers also from the attack; and if it is sufficiently indecent he also is prosecuted.

There is, I believe, one further story which you design for inclusion in "Dubliners", but which, when this trouble arose, you kept back. Please send that also with the others. I hope there may be no question about that! Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours, [initialled "EPH."—by Miss Hemmerde, Richards's secretary.]

22.

The older I get the more convinced I am that no two people can ever understand one another on any subject — understand one another thoroughly, that is. I never suggested that the publisher of "Dubliners" could be prosecuted for indecency; what I did say was said in answer to your suggestion that a printer was a mere journeyman who had nothing whatever to do with the contents of a book: to that I pointed out that in the event of a book being indecent he was equally liable with the publisher, and if it were sufficiently indecent, would be prosecuted at the same time as the publisher.

As for the printer, you seem equally to be unable to see my point. I quoted him to begin with not in deference to his opinion but as an evidence of opinion. He was the one person outside this office into whose hands the manuscript had passed, and immediately he protested. I ["fore" added in ink here]saw from his protest a series of such protests.

If as I hope we can send the manuscript to the printer on getting it back from you, we must not write each other any more letters! Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

23.

I am sorry for the delay in writing to you definitely about "Dubliners"; I hope to do so within a very few days. [initialled as in No. 21 above by EPH.]

24.

Some time ago you told me, in answer to an enquiry of mine, enough of your circumstances to make it perfectly clear to me, even if you had not gone on to say so, that the success of your literary work was a matter of very great importance to you — "My prospects are the chance of getting money enough from my book or books to enable me to resume my interrupted life". That fact has been in my mind in the re-reading — the very careful re-reading — of "Dubliners", and while I cannot say it has been the dominant factor, it has been a factor in making me decide that we cannot publish the book. You have certainly gone a good way to meet our objections to it — objections based on other people's prejudices and not on our own, as I have tried to make clear to you — but it still remains of a kind that would not, I think, be successful, that would prejudice the majority of its readers against its publisher, and would stand in the way

of your gaining success with any future work. If you had put the same matter, if you had treated life equally frankly, in a long novel, our objections would not be so potent. A long novel might succeed where a collection of short stories of equal merit would not. You are working, you told me, at a long novel. Whether you will be prepared, after the trouble there has been over this book, to offer it to us, I don't know. I think you will be wise if you decide to do so, since we at least know what you are capable of; and moreover we would give you a decision within a fortnight of the arrival of the manuscript. The artist is allowed greater latitude in a novel, why it is difficult to say; and assuming that the novel is a success, it could be followed by "Dubliners", perhaps under those circumstances without any alterations other than those you have already made. In other words: a man who has made a success is permitted greater liberty by the critics and by the public.

I would urge you, therefore, to put "Dubliners" on one side; to complete your novel; and to allow the appearance of "Dubliners" to rest largely on the success of the first book. It is possible, of course, that you might find some other publisher less timid than this house: for instance, Mr. John Long might publish "Dubliners". Still, even so I think you would be wiser to hold it back.

It is idle at this time of day and in view of what I have said for me to reiterate my own admiration for your book, but I can assure you that that admiration is both great and sincere; and I am convinced that if, for the present at least, you will be guided by certain practical considerations, your work should meet with considerable success. And whether you see fit to offer us your novel or not, you can depend on my doing everything in my power to be of assistance to that end. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Very faithfully yours,
P.S. I am keeping the manuscript here until I hear from you.

25.

I do not think I can usefully add anything to my last letter with reference to "Dubliners". You know how much we regret finding it impossible to publish the book. To bring it out as it stands, or even with the emendations you suggest, would be quite valueless from your point of view: it would bring you neither money nor reputation. If, however, you can bring yourself to complete your novel and it has the strength of your short stories, I think it might bring you both money and reputation, and that then, as I have said, "Dubliners" could follow it.

The manuscript of your poems is going back to you under separate cover. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

26.

I am afraid we must, however regretfully, stand by what we said in our last letter.

If I knew you better I would implore you to put away these stories until the novel is finished, published and a success. That you should be discouraged is perhaps natural; but discouragement is a luxury which I find it less and less possible to indulge in.

I am afraid you think we have treated you badly, but if this is so I am sure you are mistaken; and although what we have done has been in our own interest it is also, although you may not see it now, in yours too.

As far as the novel is concerned, we will accept or refuse it within fourteen days of our seeing it — if, that is to say, you are willing to let us see it at all. Of course it would be subject to an entirely new agreement.

I am returning the manuscript under separate cover. Believe me, dear Mr. Joyce, Sincerely yours,

27.

We have now found the manuscript of your "Chamber Music" which you will remember was mislaid some time ago, and are sending it to you herewith, as you will no doubt like to have it. Faithfully yours, [Typed signature initialled "EPH"]

28.

I was sorry to miss you when you called. I understand that you are passing through London again in a few days and I shall then hope to be more fortunate. Sincerely yours,

29.

I am, naturally, interested in the letter which you are sending to the press and of which you have been kind enough to send me a copy. I don't think you quite realize a publisher's difficulties. But still . . . . . . . .

I have often thought of your work and if at any time you care, in spite

of what has passed, to let me see anything else on which you may have been engaged, I hope you will not hesitate. Sincerely yours,

30.

Your letter of the 23rd instant arrives during Mr. Grant Richards's absence in the United States.

It is so long since your work was in our hands that we could not say anything definite about it until we had the opportunity of re-considering it. If you will send us a set of proofs together with your preface we will go into the matter without delay and will write to you shortly after Mr. Grant Richards's return in about a fortnight. Faithfully yours, [signed by E. P. Hemmerde]

31.

I do not gather from your preface to "Dubliners" or from any of your letters whether the book as it now stands in type has been altered to meet any of the objections of its critics, or whether it is now in is original form as it was first offered to me or in some other form of which you approve. And will you let me hear from you also on the following points:—

• 1. Do you insist on the printing of the Preface?
• 2. Are you still willing, under protest, to allow any very slight alterations in the text? (I am not at all sure that I am going to suggest any).
• 3. Is there any possibility of any person, or restaurant, or public-house, or anything of the kind, feeling, if the book is published, that there is ground for a suit against the publisher for libel?
• 4. Would you have any objection to an introduction being written to the book by some well known literary man? Sincerely yours,

31.

I have before me the agreement that you entered into with this house for "Dubliners". We will give you now exactly the same agreement, on the understanding that you take, as you say, 120 copies of the book at trade price. The book would be published at 3/6 net and we should supply the copies to you at 2/6; and it is understood that you will pay for them as soon as they are ready.

The book shall be put in hand at once and published as soon as can be conveniently arranged. Sincerely yours,

33.

Here is an agreement which embodies the terms in the old contract modified in accordance with the one or two points raised in your letter to me of February 3rd.

We will try to bring the book out in May.

By the way, the Irish compositors have not treated your dialogue in the conventional way: they have not put the various speeches between inverted commas but have adopted what to my mind is a very ugly, awkward arrangement of their own, which will act as a bar to the ordinary reader. I take it for granted that the usual method can be followed.

We will decide about the preface a little later. It is possible that the more important of the facts it contains could be incorporated in the introduction by another hand which I have in mind. It is Mr. Filson Young whom I asked if he would write an introduction as he had read the original manuscript and liked it. He replied that he would decide when he saw the whole book in our proof.

If you will sign the agreement and return it to me I will send you a duplicate signed by this firm. Sincerely yours,
P.S. There is still one point that troubles people here: the suggestion conveyed by what you say in your preface about the Dublin publishers asking you to change all the names of public houses, restaurants, etc. And they say, surely there must have been some reason for their burning of the edition. However, you have assured me that there is no need for us to fear any action for libel, and I am relying on your assurance.

34.

We will certainly try to bring your book out before the end of May; and you can have as many copies as you require over and above the 120 at the same price.

I thought it possible that it might have been by your wish that the printer treated dialogue in the way he did, and I gave much consideration to the matter. I am sure it is a mistake to present a new book by a writer not well known in the way that in this respect you would prefer. Let us do nothing to hinder the possible reader.

I am glad to have your fresh assurance in regard to possible libel actions. I confess that even when I grant your suggestion that the intention was to weary you out, I cannot divine the motive. Sincerely yours,

35.

A very shocking thing has happened. The printers have managed to lose — heaven only knows how:—it seems all of a piece with the irritations you have already suffered in connection with your book — pages 3 and 4 and 13 and 14 of "The Sisters". Can you supply us with another copy? I have never known a thing of this kind happen and I am very sorry it should have happened in your case.

I enclose your copy of the agreement, which has been delayed owing to my absence from town. Sincerely yours,

36.

The sheets you send shall certainly be inserted in the review copies of "Dubliners". Sincerely yours,

37.

We have attended to the various directions as to despatch of copies of your book. We must remind you however that the agreement implies that all the copies to be taken by you should be paid for on publication and we shall be glad therefore if you will let us have a cheque in settlement.

It is true that the agreement says "on receipt" but we are quite ready to send the books to Trieste and are only keeping them here for your convenience. Yours faithfully [initialled by "EPH"]

38.

I don't know whether you are seeing the reviews of your book. The critics, according to their kind, lay stress on what they consider its dismal atmosphere, but they have, almost without exception, spoken very well of the book, and one or two have spoken of it even as well as I think it deserves. Those of my friends, too, whose opinion I value and on whom I have urged the reading of the book, have written to me enthusiastically. I hope you are satisfied; and, incidentally, I hope you are satisfied with the appearance of the book.

Now, what are you going to do next? Perhaps indeed in the long period that has passed between the writing of "Dubliners" and its publication you have produced other work. Sincerely yours,

39.

I was very glad to get your letter of March 24th and to hear that you were well and, to use your own word, unmolested.

Yes; I have now the complete copy of your novel and I hope to write to you about it quite shortly.

By the way, as I am writing I had better clear up two or three misconceptions. If you will look up the agreement for "Dubliners" you will see that you ought not, as a matter of fact, to have let anyone publish your novel serially except by arrangement with me. However, we will let that pass. But the "Smart Set" certainly must not publish it except by arrangement with me — unless, of course, I refused it. Mr. Ezra Pound came in a week or two ago and saw my secretary who explained the matter to him, so perhaps you have already heard.

I don't at all understand what the Editor of the "Smart Set" means when he tells you that if there had been more time before the publication of the American edition of "Dubliners" he would have printed more of the stories. No American edition of the book has been arranged for; and it is odd that he should have thought one was to appear since he first heard

of the book from an American publisher, a friend of mine, whom I was trying to induce to publish it. I will write to my friend now in the hope that he may clear up the tangle and persuade the "Smart Set" to use more of the stories.

Thank you for letting me see Mr. Pinker's letter about your work.

No further notices have appeared, I think, since those we have already sent you.

The enclosed letter ought to have been sent to you sooner. It came at a time when we did not know if it was safe to send things to you and it somehow was overlooked when the other letters were forwarded. I hope it is nothing important. Sincerely yours,

40.

I wrote to you yesterday, but I may as well answer the letter I have received from you this morning.

In writing of Mr. Pinker you refer to him as "Mr. Wells's secretary or agent". He is not Mr. Wells's secretary. He is an ordinary literary agent — a very good literary agent, in fact. He sometimes handles Mr. Wells' own work. I confess though that it comes as a surprise to me that he has set up as a dramatic agent. I should have thought that dramatic agency work was better handled by the exclusively dramatic agents, of whom there are one or two, Miss Elizabeth Marbury being the best known.

Yes; I got back the press cuttings. Neither the "Freeman's Journal" nor "Sinn Fein" has reviewed your book.

41.

There has been no American edition of "Dubliners". Pirates in American are not now active. In any case a book like "Dubliners" is unlikely to have been pirated; and if it had been pirated I should have heard of it. The letter that was written to you speaking of an American edition was evidently written under a misapprehension. Such things do happen.

Of course we have no right to object to your letting Mr. Pinker handle the dramatic rights of "Exiles".

A letter of mine crossed yours in which I told you that the "Freeman's Journal" and "Sinn Fein" have not reviewed your book.

Your corrections for "Dubliners" were duly received. A statement of sales to the end of the year shall be sent to you very soon. Sincerely yours,

42.

I enclose herewith a statement of the sales of "Dubliners" to the end of the last half year. You will see that at that time thirty-nine more copies had to be sold before the royalty begins.

No; Mr. Pinker was never Mr. Wells's secretary. Before he started as a literary agent, now many years ago, he was editor, or assistant editor, or something of the kind, of "Black and White" — in its early days, of course. I get a letter from him to-day asking if I am prepared to exercise my option on your novel. Surely, unless you have altered the arrangements you told me you were making, this is not a matter about which I am to deal with him? I should like you to tell me definitely. In any case, I am not quite ready yet to speak about the novel but I hope to write to you very soon. Sincerely yours,

[Statement of Joyce's Dubliners account with Grant Richards, dated December, 1914, and enclosed with letter no. 42 above.]

           

June 15	Number of copies printed		1250
Dec 31	Copies free (for review, etc.)	117
	" on hand	634	751
"	Copies sold		499
	499 461
	No royalty is payable till after 500 copies are sold.

The figures 499 461 refer to the royalty agreement between Joyce and Richards which provides that for royalty purposes thirteen copies count as twelve. Aside from the 120 copies taken by Joyce, only 379 copies of Dubliners had been sold. Stunned by the poor sales of his book Joyce called the state of affairs "disastrous" in a letter of 7 May. He insisted that Richards deal directly with Pinker in the future.

43.

Even before the war the usual fate of a volume of fiction by a new writer was hardly better than that of "Dubliners". Many quite reasonable novels with more of the essential stuff of popularity in them have sold less well than 379 copies. And "Dubliners" is not a novel. Collections of short stories are always handicapped. And there was the war.

The 120 copies that you bought are included in the number shown as sold.

I will see if there is any amount owing by you and if there is I will enclose a note of it; but do not, if there is anything owing, send it, because on the next statement, which will include the matter of the "Smart Set" stories, there will be some small balance due to you which can be set off.

Do not, in any case, I beg you, describe the position as "disastrous". It is not encouraging, but the position of very few books is encouraging just now.

I note that you have appointed Mr. Pinker your literary agent; and I have already returned the end of the novel to "The Egoist". Sincerely yours,

44.

You may think it an ironic commentary on my saying to you the other day that there was no need to be discouraged by the comparatively small

sale of "Dubliners" that I write now to say that I do not want to publish "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". If it were not for the war; if it were not for the general depression; I should, although I might have hesitated, have availed myself of my option. But to-day I am afraid of the book. It demands a public of intelligent readers. There are such readers but they are difficult to get at; and they are peculiarly difficult to get at now. Sincerely yours,

45.

I am rather ashamed at having so long delayed in writing to thank you for your book. I have added it to "Dubliners" on my shelves with very great pleasure, a pleasure however that is qualified by the absence of my own name from the title-page. I am still however inclined to think that if a regular publisher had put out the book there would have been trouble. I hope it is being successful.

When I saw H. G. Wells's review I wrote and asked him if he had read "Dubliners" and sent him a copy on hearing that he had not done so.

In self defence I should perhaps add that your book arrived considerably later than your card which heralded its coming. Very Sincerely yours

46.

I think we shall be able to publish your play in January. I should like to bring it out before that but I am afraid it will be impossible. Proofs shall be sent to you as soon as I can get them from the printer. But getting proofs from printers is a difficult job in these days. They are all working with depleted staffs.

I am sorry to read what you say about your sight. When you next write please tell me more. I hope it is only a temporary trouble that will pass. Sincerely yours,

47.

I have your letter of July 18th, but I do not quite understand it. You say: "My publisher will make a proposal to you about 'Exiles'".

I think we shall print a first edition of five hundred copies, although this will depend on whether some American publisher — Mr. Huebsch or another — prefers to set the book up or to take part of my edition. I shall communicate with Mr. Huebsch as soon as I have proofs.

As I think you know by now, I am not myself at present printing a second edition of "Dubliners" but am taking some copies from Mr. Huebsch to go on with. I should have printed a second edition now if conditions had been normal. Sincerely yours,