• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Ransom Center Magazine

  • Articles
  • Sections
    • Art
    • Books + Manuscripts
    • Conservation
    • Exhibitions + Events
    • Film
    • Literature
    • Photography
    • Research + Teaching
    • Theatre + Performing Arts
  • Print Edition

Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #7

June 3, 2022 - Harry Ransom Center

Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #7

#7: Letter from James Joyce to Ludmila Bloch Savitsky, June 20, 1921

by CLARE HUTTON

This is the seventh article in a series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported author James Joyce and the publication of his landmark novel, Ulysses (1922). Learn more in the exhibition, Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses, curated by Dr. Clare Hutton and on view through July 17, 2022. Subscribe to eNews to receive all the articles in this series.

This is an unpublished letter in French from Joyce to Ludmila Bloch Savitsky (1881–1957) who did much to introduce Joyce to French literary circles by authoring the first French translation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Dedalus: Portrait de l’artiste jeune par lui-même (Paris: La Sirène, 1924). Savitsky was an accomplished writer, critic, and translator who could work confidently between English, French, German, and Russian.

Letter
Letter from James Joyce to Ludmila Bloch Savitsky, June 20, 1921

Ezra Pound had given Savitsky a copy of Portrait just before Joyce arrived in Paris early in July 1920. Pound was hopeful that she might agree to take on the considerable challenge of translating a work that was daring in its stylistic innovation, and unlikely to bring much renumeration. Not only did Savitsky agree to do the translation she also offered Joyce and his family the opportunity to live in her apartment, free of charge, an opportunity which Joyce accepted with alacrity.

Joyce’s arrival in Paris was initially planned as a stay of three months (“in order to write the last adventure Circe in peace”). In the event he stayed for twenty years and spent the first three months in Savitsky’s apartment on the rue de l’Assomption. Savitsky moved easily within Parisian cultural circles and had been one of the first subscribers to the lending library which Sylvia Beach operated from Shakespeare and Company. She was also responsible for organizing the party at which Joyce and Sylvia Beach met.

Most of Savitsky’s work on Portrait was completed by April 1921, but it proved difficult to find a publisher willing to commit to issuing the work, as this letter suggests. Savitsky was an accomplished translator who also completed translations of work by May Sinclair, Ezra Pound, H. D., John Rodker, and Virginia Woolf.  But Joyce felt that she was slow to translate Portrait and implies so strongly in this letter. Were she to take on Ulysses (“un petit bouquin”, a little book), Joyce quips, it would not be ready until April 1, 2999.

Letter
Letter from James Joyce to Ludmila Bloch Savitsky, June 20, 1921

For reasons not of Savitsky’s own making, Portrait took over two years to get published by La Sirène, with whom Joyce signed a contract on August 11, 1921. Joyce eventually recognized that Savitsky had produced an extremely good translation of Portrait. But the experience was alienating for Savitsky who came to see translation as a “thankless occupation” which took her away from writing of her own. Savitsky did not become involved in the translation of Ulysses into French undertaken by a team that included Auguste Morel, Stuart Gilbert, and Valery Larbaud. This took several years to complete and was published in 1929 by Adrienne Monnier, Beach’s lover and the owner of La Maison des Amis des Livres, French language bookshop and lending library, which was also located on the rue de l’Odéon, just across from Shakespeare and Company.

Only half of Joyce’s unpublished correspondence has been published to date.  Of the 3,793 items known to be extant, 1,868 remain unpublished, though this situation is set to change thanks to a new digital edition. Ellmann’s biography, which first appeared in 1959 is more than sixty years old, and is in need of revision. Biographers and editors need to confront the issue of Joyce’s relations with women, particularly those such as Savitsky, who worked so hard to help him find an audience.

Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts, Exhibitions + Events, Featured1 Tagged With: literature, Ludmila Bloch Savitsky, Ulysses, Ulysses Ten Objects, Ulysses100

ABOUT CLARE HUTTON

Dr. Clare Hutton is Reader in English and Digital Humanities at Loughborough University, and the curator of Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses, a centenary Ulysses exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. Her monograph, Serial Encounters: Ulysses and The Little Review (OUP, 2019) has just been reissued in paperback. Her other research includes editing The Irish Book in English, 1891-2000 (OUP, 2011), and many essays on Yeats, Joyce, and the "Irish Literary Revival."

Primary Sidebar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJKzdgth90k

Recent Posts

  • Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #9
  • MAPP partnership leads to collection discovery at the Center
  • Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #8
  • Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses: A History in Ten Objects #7
  • Storytelling Is How We Stay Connected: An Interview With Oscar Cásares

Tags

acquisition Alice's Adventures in Wonderland archive archives Art Books Cataloging Conservation Council on Library and Information Resources David Foster Wallace David O. Selznick digitization exhibition Exhibitions Fellows Find Fellowships Film Frank Reaugh Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive Gone with the Wind I have seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America Lewis Carroll literature Magnum Photos Manuscripts Meet the Staff Nobel Prize Norman Bel Geddes Norman Mailer Performing Arts Photography poetry preservation Publishing Research Robert De Niro Shakespeare theater The King James Bible: Its History and Influence The Making of Gone With The Wind Undergraduate What is Research? World War I

Archives

Before Footer

Sign up for eNews

Our monthly newsletter highlights news, exhibitions, and programs.

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

About

Ransom Center Magazine is an online and print publication sharing stories and news about the Harry Ransom Center, its collections, and the creative community surrounding it.

Copyright © 2022 The Harry Ransom Center Magazine


The University of Texas at Austin · Web Privacy Policy · Web Accessibility Policy

Copyright © 2022 Harry Ransom Center

Web Accessibility · Web Privacy