Joyce, James.

Purple carbon typescript schema for "Ulysses", four sheets glued together to form one long oblong typescript, preserved in original envelope with autograph note by joyce's publisher sylvia beach ("Plan of Ulysses copy made by Benoist Méchin"), overall size 205 x  984mm, [c. Autumn 1921/early 1922]  minor staining from glue at intersection of sheets, a few tiny nicks at edges

one of three recorded pre-publication versions of the original schema or plan for "ulysses",  created for the French translator of  "penelope", who suggested to joyce the famous affirmative ending of the novel, molly bloom's final climactic  "oui" or "yes" (see below).

There were probably no more than seven authorially authorised versions of Joyce's celebrated Ulysses schema in all which the author made available, on an individual and very discreet basis, to close initiates in his literary circle between 1920 and 1925 (the novel was published in February 1922). only three versions were made available before publication: one to Carlo Linati, the present one to  Benoîst-Mechin and a third to the publisher Sylvia Beach. 

Even before publication Joyce's Ulysses, arguably the greatest English novel of the twentieth century, had attained almost legendary status amongst publishers, readers and the literary circles of London, Dublin, New York and Paris. Joyce was being pressed hard, in the two years prior to publication, not only to finish the work (an Herculean seven-year labour of love written at nineteen separate addresses all over Europe and often executed without his notes) but also to explain and justify his project. It was from about the autumn of 1916 onwards that Joyce began to put together what Ezra Pound called the Odyssean "scaffold" for his grand work, which previously had been thought of as a possible short story for Dubliners (see lot 179) or even a sequel to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But only in 1920, with the drafting of the first schema or plan, did Joyce provide a key to his enigmatic work, showing how it would recast and reconfigure Homer's epic for the modern era. The schemata were only made available to a tiny number of close initiates: many commentators, critics and readers had the experience of requesting the plan in vain. Perhaps more than any other utterance by Joyce in his lifetime, in his letters or conversation, the "ulysses" schema remains the ultimate "clou" or plan to his great work, having attained an almost mythical status at a higher level than any other related document. If 16 June 1904, the day of Joyce's first date with Nora and the day of action of Ulysses, became for him a date of talismanic importance then for all Jocyeans--whether readers, scholars or collectors--the  Ulysses schema is of  equal significance as a document in the evolution and history of the novel.

In a 1925 autograph postcard to his friend the American book illustrator Richard Wallace, Joyce records that there were only five copies of the schema made for people who had an immediate connection with his novel. These were Harriet Weaver, Sylvia Beach, Valery Larbaud, Jacques Benoîst-Mechin (who contributed some of the music) and Auguste Morel (the French translator) [from an unpublished postcard, private collection]

In fact there was one earlier (quite different) schema, written in Italian, lacking the "Correspondences" between Joyce's and Homer's characters present in future versions, which Joyce wrote out in holograph and sent to the Italian translator Carlo Linati  in September 1920. In enclosing it Joyce commented that he thought it would be helpful, considering the huge complexity of his "damned monster-novel",  if he supplied a key or some kind of precis or scheme which would help clarify his idea (see Selected Letters, p.271)

In the same letter Joyce goes on to explain, for the first time, how he intends to render the Ulyssean myth sub specie temporis nostri and how each episode, with its corresponding hour, organ, and art, will condition and create its own technique. In a postscript, Joyce comments on the poor quality of paper he has used for the schema, and requests their return once Linati has finished with them. In fact Joyce almost certainly had another reason for wanting the schema back: he did not want it circulated as a means of understanding Ulysses. Linati obliged, and this manuscript schema is now part of the Poetry and Rare Books Collection at the State University of New York at Buffalo (MS. V.A.1.a.), acquired with other of Joyce's manuscripts--as rescued from his apartment by his friend Paul Leon--from Librarie La Hune in Paris in 1950 (It is reproduced on the endpapers of Peter Spielberg's catalogue of James Joyce's Manuscripts & Letters at the University of Buffalo, 1962). Joyce's reluctance to have the schema or plan circulated--sometimes together with a demand or request that the schema be returned to him--is a theme in several cases where he authorised a version for release: see below, for instance, the release of only a portion of the plan initially to Benoîst-Mechin and its belated availability to his publisher and acknowledged saviour Sylvia Beach. In a later later to Herbert Gorman Joyce's friend and advisor Paul Leon records that the schema or "chart...had an absolutely private character and was not meant for publication, least of all as an addition or interpretation of the text" (see H.K. Croessman, Joyce, Gorman and the Schema of Ulysses: An exchange of letters--Paul Leon, Herbert Gorman, Bennett Cerf, pp.10-11). 

Of the five main versions referred to by Joyce in the postcard to Wallace--all in English, all but one in typescript form, but all with differences to a greater or lesser degree--Joyce sent the first In November 1921 to Larbaud, the intended French translator of Ulysses, to help him prepare for his lecture on the novel scheduled for 7 December 1921, organised by Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier of Shakespeare & Co. It was decided that parts of Ulysses should be translated for the event, but Larbaud not having time to do the work himself Monnier enlisted the French writer and sometime composer Jacques Benoîst-Mechin, "only twenty years old but clever and already one of Joyce's firm admirers" (Ellmann, p.521) for the task in hand. In order to translate Penelope (the final chapter) accurately Benoîst-Mechin asked to see the schema previously sent to Larbaud. Joyce initially only supplied a portion of it, allegedly declaring to Mechin, in one of the most celebrated, oft-quoted and (as it happens) prescient of all his spoken comments on his work, "If I give it all up immediately, I'd lose my immortality. I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality" (from Ellmann's interview with Benoîst-Mechin, 1956, quoted in James Joyce, 1982, p.521). However, the young admirer continued to press Joyce for the full schema or scheme, and eventually the full plan was supplied. the present lot therefore is the second of the five authorised english versions of the schema made available by joyce to those in his intimate literary circle, and the third (counting the first Italian manuscript version) overall. Inevitably Sylvia Beach asked to see it, "and the invaluable page began to circulate a little in typescript under the most solemn injunctions of secrecy" (Ellmann, op.cit.). Joyce inscribed Beach's copy--like Benoîst-Mechin's, typed with purple ribbon--on the day of publication of Ulysses, 13 February 1922, and she attached it to the rear endpapers of the 1/100 Ulysses similarly inscribed by Joyce to her (book and schema are now in the Poetry and Rare Books Collection at the State University of New York at Buffalo, MS. V.A.1. b.).

Later Auguste Morel, who took over the job of translating Ulysses into French, was also sent a copy (formerly part of the Quentin Keynes Library, now in another private collection), together with Joyce's patron Harriet Weaver (this one is part of the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa). three of the five authorised english schemata are, therefore, in institutions. The schema given to Larbaud appears not to have survived.

One later schema (a seventh version overall, therefore) was sent by Joyce in 1926  to Herbert Gorman to help him in the reworking of his 1924 biography James Joyce: His first Forty Years (this version is now located in the H.K. Croessmann Collection at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale). Other copies, such as Edmond Wilson's (1928, also housed at Tulsa) were bootlegged without the author's consent from Gorman's schema (Joyce had turned down Wilson's request for one). Most of the plan was first published in Stuart Gilbert's James Joyce's Ulysses (1930).

Despite nearly identical texts and structure none of these early schemata are truly identical. Typogaphical errors, minor textual omissions, and varying font styles and sizes differentiate them from one another. these differences serve to identify each schema as a unique creation. Clearly they were prepared individually and on different typewriters. It is more than likely that each had its own copyist. Harriet Weaver's schema is in her own hand and was made from a copy Joyce showed her. The Morel schema has omissions rectified in purple ink in Morel's hand. Beach's copy is of a slightly larger size (207 x 1020mm versus Mechin's, 205 x 984mm) but it also--like Mechin's--comprises four sheets (instead of five, as with Morel's) and has a number of similar typing errors ("Malligan" for "Mulligan", "Nenelaus" for Menelaus") which are corrected, for instance, in the later Gorman version now housed in the Croessmann Collection (see H.K. Croessmann,  "Joyce, Gorman, and the Schema of Ulysses", in Magalaner, ed., A James Joyce Miscellany: Second Series, p.10). Sylvia Beach's notation on the envelope of the present Benoîst-Mechin schema states that it was made by Mechin himself. This makes sense in relation to the individual hallmarks of the other schemata. The present example is a carbon copy. Whether the top copy was retained by Mechin and the carbon returned to Beach is unclear.

Jacques Benoîst-Mechin (b.1901) made at least two very significant contributions to the text of Ulysses. Even before he became involved in translating Penelope Joyce had asked him to write out some musical notations for Ulysses (his work was photographed for subsequent editions); secondly, and most importantly, it was he who, engaged on the French translation of Molly Bloom's final soliloquy which ends the novel,  famously added an affirmative "oui" in the face of his difficulty in successfully translating "...and yes I said yes I will" (Benoîst-Mechin did not like "je veux" or "je veux bien" on their own). Joyce obviously noticed and commented that he hadn't written that.  "It sounds better that way", said  Benoîst-Mechin. Joyce replied that it was a significant question: the last word of a book was very important. They talked for several hours about it and "eventually Joyce pretended to be persuaded of what he had already decided, that `I will' was too Luciferian, and `yes' a submission to a world beyond himself" (see Ellmann, James Joyce, 1982, p.522). Benoîst-Mechin was right, the book should end with a yes, the most affirmative word in the human language. Thus Molly's soliloquy ends as it had started, with a climactic affirmation of reconciliation and love (whether "sexual, parental, filial, brotherly... [or] social": Ellmann, preface, 1986), and a revolt against history in all its forms as hatred and violence.