Friday, July 01, 2011

James Joyce's Passport for sale


Next month at Sotheby’s in London James Joyce’s wartime family passport, recording the writer’s movements across Europe as he penned his masterpiece Ulysses, is to be auctioned.

An arresting aspect of the exclusive literary object, which tracks Joyce’s peripatetic existence between Trieste, Zurich, Paris and London during, and after the First World War, is the fact that Nora Barnacle is stated as Joyce’s wife. In fact, the couple had eloped from Ireland in 1904, and would not get married until 1931.

The passport almost exactly maps, what is perhaps, his most creative period, covering the writing and publication of the book for which he is best known.

The passport, which consists of a double-sided sheet on white and pink paper folded to form 10 panels, was issued to Joyce, Nora, and their two children, Georgio and Lucia, by the British consulate in Zurich on August 10th, 1915. 



From IBook Collector Newsletter.



























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