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Contact: Holly Victor
(215) 732-1600 ext. 19
June 6, 2000 (Philadelphia) -Opening to the public on June 13, 2000 will be Ulysses in Hand: The Rosenbach Manuscript the first-ever travelling exhibition of the manuscript of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The exhibition, organized by the Rosenbach Museum & Library, will be on view at the Chester Beatty Library (Dublin) through October 1, 2000. Ulysses is widely considered to be the most influential book of the twentieth century. This exhibition will bring Joyce’s handwritten draft of the novel to Dublin for the first time.
Ulysses takes place on one day—June 16, 1904—in one city—Dublin. Joyce is said to have claimed that if the city were ever destroyed, it could be rebuilt using Ulysses as a blueprint. Yet the manuscript has never been in Ireland, as Joyce wrote the novel in Trieste, Zurich and Paris while in self-imposed exile. In late 1919 Joyce agreed to sell the yet unfinished manuscript to John Quinn, a New York attorney and art collector, who received it in stages between 1920 and 1922. In 1924 Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, a book dealer distinguished by his knowledge of literature, purchased the manuscript of Ulysses at auction for his personal collection. It has not left Philadelphia since Dr. Rosenbach’s death in 1952, when it became part of the Rosenbach Museum & Library, nor has it left the United States since it was mailed by Joyce to Quinn.
The exhibition will feature a selection from the 837 pages of the manuscript, as well as letters to and from Joyce that emphasize the importance of this early draft in the composition of the novel. It will also use artifacts and photographs to connect the writing of the novel with the wildly fluctuating circumstances of Joyce’s life. The story of how Joyce’s manuscript came to reside in Philadelphia as one of the prized possessions of Dr. Rosenbach will be told through the objects from the Rosenbach archive. In addition, a small selection of remarkable works on loan from The University at Buffalo, the National Library of Ireland, Cornell University and the New York Public Library will complement the exhibition.
Michael Barsanti, a Joyce scholar and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, will curate the exhibition. In addition to his work on Joyce at Penn, Mr. Barsanti received an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Miami (Coral Gables) in 1994, where he concentrated in Joyce studies. He has been involved with several other exhibitions at the Rosenbach, serving as assistant curator for Making it New: Marianne Moore and the Visual Arts (November 1996-March 1997) and as co-curator of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: A Centennial Exhibition (April-November 1997).
