James Joyce

The pleasure afforded by James Joyce's works shows no sign of diminution as we reach the centenary of his birth. He exhibits the staying power associated with the greatest writers. Vestigial perplexities, as critics labor to allay them, tend if anything to swell his reputation. In offering a new edition of this biography, I have incorporated the considerable amount of new information that has come in during the twenty-two years since it was published. The additions may help to assuage some of the curiosity that still persists about this bizarre and wonderful creature who turned literature and language on end. In what follows readers of the first edition will discover that more pages have been altered than not, by insertions ranging from a line to a page or more. The fresh material deals with most aspects of Joyce's life: his writings and his attitude towards them, his experiences of love and desire, his domestic travails, his political views. Many corrections (besides those entered on two occasions in earlier printings) have also been made. Since this biography has to some degree the character of the year, 1959, when it first appeared, I have kept references to 'now' though they must be understood as referring to 'then.' In the second edition, as in the first, I have followed Joyce's own prescription of total candor, with the knowledge that his life, like Rousseau's, can bear others' scrutiny as it bore his own. In working over these pages, I have felt all my affection for him renewed.