James Joyce | V&A Brief Museum Guide, 1931, inscribed by James and Nora Joyce to Joyce's sister Eileen

James Joyce—Victoria & Albert Museum

Brief Guide. [London,] January 1931

INSCRIBED JOINTLY BY NORA AND JAMES JOYCE "for Eil | Best Wishes | Nora Joyce | James Joyce | Jan 1931" on title page, 8vo, photogravure frontispiece of the museum exterior, 2 pages of plates, 2 pages of maps, original bright orange printed wrappers, vertical crease where once folded

A JOYCE FAMILY GIFT, inscribed by Joyce and his wife to his sister Eileen. In 1910 Eileen had followed her brothers to Trieste. She had married a Czech, Frantisek Schaurek, in 1915 and the couple settled back in Trieste after World War I. Schaurek committed suicide in November 1926 when Eileen was away in Dublin (a bank clerk, he had been embezzling money from his employer). James Joyce heard the news before his sister, but could not bear to tell her when she visited him in Paris on her return journey. Eileen reached Trieste to find her husband already buried, and demanded his exhumation before she could accept he was dead. Shortly afterwards, she and her children returned to Ireland.

This pamphlet was presumably sent by James and Nora Joyce ahead of a planned visit to London by Eileen, at a time when Joyce and his wife were themselves planning a visit to London for their somewhat belated wedding. From May to September 1931 they lived in Campden Grove ("Campden Grave", as Joyce dubbed it), not far from the V&A.

JOINT INSCRIPTIONS BY JAMES AND NORA JOYCE ARE RARE ON THE MARKET.