State spends €12.6m to bring Joyce manuscripts home

The National Library has acquired what experts describe as the most significant collection of James Joyce manuscripts in the world.

The collection cost €12.6 million and comprises of over 500 sheets written by the author, including drafts of eight episodes of

Ulysses

as well as proofs and amended proofs of

Finnegans Wake

.

One of the notebooks dating from 1904 fittingly contains a draft of the famous episode in Ulyssesset on the steps of the National Library.

After transporting the unique cargo of Joycean manuscripts from an RAF base in London the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht, Ms Sile de Valera was greeted at Dublin Airport by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.

A voice is something that says something James Joyce

Ms de Valera said the acquisition will be acknowledged as a "monumental event in Ireland's literary and cultural history."

She said: "With this collection housed in the National Library of Ireland that institution - which Joyce himself knew well - will become a globally important and pre-eminent centre for the study of his work."

When asked what Joyce himself, who described Dublin as a "miserable place", would make of the purchase, Mr Ahern preferred to read from one of the notebooks.

"A voice is something that says something," he said.

Mr Ahern said Joyce was one of the great writers and the collection would add to the growing interest in him.

The collection of papers, which has been stored in Paris for many years, was purchased from Mr Alexis Leon, the son of Paul Leon a close friend and confidant of Joyce's.

Leon (senior), who was a Jew, had returned to German-occupied Paris in 1940 by which time Joyce and his family had left and were en route to neutral Switzerland.

Leon rescued a quantity of books and notebooks from the writer's address in Paris which ironically the landlord had tried to auction to recover unpaid rent.

Leon was arrested by the Gestapo soon afterwards and died in a concentration camp.

The collection, which will go on display in the National Library in the coming months, will be paid for over three years. Allied Irish Bank has donated €6.8 million towards the cost which it will write off against tax. The remainder is being paid for from the Heritage Fund.