“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 addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. 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