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Joyce (James, writer, 1882-1941)

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3pp. & envelope, 8vo, Hotel Métropole, Nice, 28th September 1932, "The report in the English press that I was operated is incorrect as usual. Vogt found the operation (after a month's study) too difficult and dangerous - even for him. I have to go back now every three months for another year or year and a half... . We are all here. My daughter [Lucia] is much better and so far my plan has succeeded. My congratulations to you also as co-publisher on the appearance of the book of lettering. If you have a copy available at your London office I should like you to ring up three people and invite them to look at it 1)... Harriet Weaver... 2) Ralph Pinks... 3) James Stephens... . I particularly want Stehens to see it before I write to him about my daughter's alphabet which she is now finishing. The letters are even finer than those you published", folds.

***Joyce opens this letter by recounting his eye problems: "On September 7 [1932] he [Joyce] returned to Vogt for another examination. He fully expected to submit to an operation, and had friends leak the news to the press that he had been operated upon; but in fact Vogt, after testing his right eye for tension, decided the operation was too dangerous and had better be put off." (Ellmann). Lucia Joyce's work was for A Chaucer ABC (1936) but some of the designs were used in Desmond Harmsworth's edition of the facsimile of Pomes Penyeach. At this time Lucia's behavious was beginning to cause concern, eventually being treated by Jung for schizophrenia and then spending much of the rest of her life in various mental establishments. She died in 1982 at St. Andrew's Hospital, Northampton. Dr. Alfred Vogt, Swiss eye surgeon. Harriet Weaver (1876-1961), political activist and journal editor; friend of James Joyce; looked after Lucia Joyce for a time in London. James Stephens (1880-1950), poet and novelist; friend of James Joyce..

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