The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses (72 page)

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and
“How could she?”:
DMW
, p. 208.
slipped by New York customs agents
:
Weaver to JQ, Nov. 15, 1922, NYPL.
reports of missing copies
:
SB to Marion Peter, Sept. 19, 1922,
LSB
, pp. 102, 105; JQ to Rodker, Dec. 9, 1922, NYPL.
she noticed a detective
:
JJ to Weaver, Nov. 8, 1922, and Dec. 8, 1922, BL. See also
DMW
, 208n.
A raid in Boston
:
WHS, Box 2 Folder 8, November 1922 Secretary’s Report.
General Post Office Building
:
JQ to Weaver, Dec. 9, 1922, NYPL.
customs officials forwarded the matter
and
“plainly obscene”
and
the furnace room:
Edward C. Robinson to JQ, Aug. 27, 1923, NYPL. See Weaver to SB, May 24, 1923, SBP, Box 35 Folder 18. See also Weaver to John Slocum, Feb. 25, 1947, Yale Joyce, Box 29 Folder 555; Ell, pp. 505–6n.
black doors
and
a row of lower chambers:
Description based on a photograph taken of John Sumner burning books in 1935 at an unidentified New York location. See Boyer,
Purity in Print
, p. 98 photo insert, Figure 7. The solicitor pausing over passages marked by customs is my speculation. Marking passages was a habit for books undergoing review.
Federal law required notification
:
Section 5 of the Comstock Act says that seized items “may be condemned and destroyed” following proceedings of municipal seizures “and with the same right of appeal or writ of error.” See 17 Stat. 598 (1873).
“Obscenity?”
:
Sisley Huddleston, “Ulysses,”
London Observer
, March 5, 1922, qtd. in Deming,
Joyce: Critical Heritage
, p. 214.
The Home Office was the principal
:
Sir Charles Edward Troup,
The Home Office
(London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925), p. 1.
carrying out the undersecretary’s orders
:
BNA, H.O. 144/20071 (Old Ref. # 186.428/2).
undersecretary obtained the sixteen-page
and
“unreadable”
and
should be detained:
Ibid. (Old Ref. # 186.428/1).
established precedent
and
prosecuted all capital crimes
and
twenty-three hundred cases:
Robert Jackson,
Case for the Prosecution: A Biography of Sir Archibald Bodkin, Director of Public Prosecutions, 1920
–
1930
(London: A. Barker, 1962), pp. 170–171.
seized a single copy of
Ulysses
and
page 704
and
The owner objected
and
Bodkin’s decision:
BNA, H.O. 144/20071 (Old Ref. # 186.428/2).
“yes I think he made them”
:
Ulysses
, p. 620 (18: 535–44). Page 704 in 1922 edition.
“he made me spend”
:
Ulysses
, p. 621 (18: 586–89).
ruthless
:
Jackson,
Case for the Prosecution,
p. 168.
“He’s a beast”
and
Suffragettes pelted him:
Ibid., pp. 101–2.
cars were anathema
:
Ibid., pp. 243–5.
worked so tirelessly
and
sallow and bags:
Ibid., p. 17.
disapproving glare
:
Ibid., pp. 234–5.
“As might be supposed”
and
“other morbid writers”:
BNA, H.O. 144/20071 (Old Reference # 186.428/2).
five hundred copies of
Ulysses
:
Weaver to SB, May 24, 1923, SBP, Box 35 Folder 18; Weaver to John Slocum, Feb. 25, 1947, Yale Joyce, Box 29 Folder 555.
prima facie obscene
:
“R.J.” to Jane Lidderdale, Dec. 7, 1966, UCL, Joyce/1/A/10.
opportunity to appeal
:
See Customs Consolidation Act 1876 c. 36, 39 and 40 Vict, Sections 207 and 208.
couldn’t bear the public scrutiny
and
advised against it:
DMW
, pp. 216–7.
customs officials burned them
:
Weaver to SB May 24, 1923, SBP, Box 35 Folder 18.
“King’s Chimney”
:
SC
, p. 96.
burned the records
:
BNA, H.O. 144/20071. Only ten of sixty-five files related to
Ulysses
survive in the National Archives. The rest are indicated “destroyed” on the covers of the surviving files. Three files following Bodkin’s
Ulysses
decision are destroyed and may have contained details of the burnings. That the destruction happened by burning is my speculation.
21. THE PHARMACOPEIA
warily eased himself into conversations
:
See, e.g., Helen Nutting Diary, Tulsa Series, 1 Box 176.
first eye patch
:
JJ to Weaver, Nov. 17, 1922,
LI
, p. 197. See also Ell, p. 542.
would pull his lower eyelid
:
Wood,
System of Ophthalmic Therapeutics
, pp. 59, 430.
douse it with cocaine
:
JJ to Weaver, June 27, 1924, Yale Joyce, Box 1 Folder 27.
a couple of drops
and
a more potent relative:
Wood,
System of Ophthalmic Therapeutics,
p. 484.
back-toothed iris forceps
:
Beard,
Ophthalmic Surgery
, p. 93.
With two snips, he cut away
and
Joyce’s new pupil
and
separated the iris:
Lucia Joyce to Weaver, May 1, 1923, BL; Weaver to JQ, May 30, 1923, NYPL. Beard,
Ophthalmic Surgery,
pp. 437–9, 443. Reattachment of the iris is my speculation, though it is common in cases of synechia.
most difficult
:
Beard,
Ophthalmic Surgery,
p. 456.
ninth attack
and
cataract extraction:
Edmund Sullivan, “Ocular History of James Joyce,”
Survey Ophthalmology
28 (1984), p. 414; see JJ to Weaver, Dec. 23, 1924,
LIII
, p. 111.
complete iridectomy
:
Lucia to Weaver, June 23, 1924, BL.
twelfth surgery
:
See June 1930 medical report, Berg Collection, NYPL (Reprinted in
LIII,
pp. 197–8).
conjunctivitis, episcleritis and blepharitis
:
See, e.g., JJ to Weaver, Sept. 20, 1928,
LI
, 266.
retina atrophied
:
Ell, p. 664 (Source: Joyce to Léon, July 12, 1932,
LIII
, p. 248).
eyes hemorrhaged and lost vitreous fluid
:
June 1930 medical report, Berg Collection, NYPL (Reprinted in
LIII
, pp. 197–8); Sullivan, “Ocular History,” p. 414.
“slowly nearing extinction”
:
JJ to SB, Aug. 26, 1924,
JJ/SB
, p. 47.
prescription was +6.5
:
EP to JJ, March 17, 1917,
EP/JJ
, pp. 101–2.
it was +17
:
Francisco J. Ascaso and Jan L. van Velze, “Was James Joyce Myopic or Hyperopic?”
British Medical Journal,
Dec. 15, 2011, p. 343. Ascaso and van Velze base their conclusion on Alfred Vogt’s 1932 prescription for Joyce’s glasses at the University of Buffalo (Series XIX Folder 27).
reduced his vision in other ways
:
Ibid., James Ravin, “The Multifaceted Career of Louis Borsch,”
Archives of Ophthalmology
127, no. 11 (2009); Ell, pp. 417, 568–9; JJ to Weaver, March 11, 1923,
LI
, p. 201; June 1930 medical report, Berg Collection, NYPL.
1/30
and
1/800 to 1/1000:
June 1930 medical report, Berg Collection, NYPL.
children’s books
:
JJ to Weaver, Dec. 2 and 15, 1928, BL.
“mode of life”
:
Weaver qtd. in
DMW
, p. 198.
good food
:
SB to Weaver, July 9, 1922,
LSB
, p. 99.
strain of writing
Ulysses
: “James Joyce Regains Sight,”
Chicago Tribune
, May 10, 1923, copied from Yale Joyce, Box 9 Folder 195.
the weather
:
See, e.g., JJ to Weaver, April 22, 1917,
LI
, p. 102, and Aug. 20, 1917; JJ to James Pinker, Aug. 20, 1917,
LII
, p. 404.
steam baths, mud baths, sweating powders
:
SJ, Trieste Diary, May 23–July 4, 1907, Tulsa, Series 1 Box 142.
iodine injections
:
JJ to Weaver, May 28, 1929,
LI
, p. 280; Sylvia Beach, “James Joyce’s Eyes,” ca. 1929 (n.d.), Buffalo, Series XIX Folder 18.
tonic called synthol
:
JJ to Weaver, March 5, 1926,
LIII
, p. 138.
“endocrine treatment”
:
LSB
, p. 99;
EP/JJ
, p. 212.
electrotherapy
:
JJ to Weaver, Dec. 23, 1924,
LIII
, p. 112; SB to Weaver, June 11, 1922,
LSB
, pp. 95–96; SJ, Trieste Diary, May 23-July 4, 1907, Tulsa, Series 1 Box 142.
having electrodes attached
:
Wood,
System of Ophthalmic Therapeutics
, pp. 163–4.
put multiple leeches
:
See, e.g, JJ to Weaver, Aug. 29, 1922, BL; JJ to Weaver, Oct. 22, 1922, BL; NB to Weaver, Dec. 10, 1924, BL; and Helen Fleischman to Weaver, June 1, 1930, BL.
dionine to dissipate his nebulae
:
See, e.g., JJ to Weaver, Feb. 26, 1923, BL; JJ to Weaver, March 18, 1923, BL; Weaver to JQ, May 30, 1923, NYPL.
salicylic acid and boric acid
:
Ell, p. 538. See also Aug. 6, 1931, prescription, Yale Joyce, Box 24 Folder 515.
He took pilocarpine
:
See, e.g., JJ to Weaver, Dec. 2, 1928, BL; Ell, p. 607.
induced delirium and hallucinations over the years
:
EP to JJ, March 17, 1917,
EP/JJ,
p. 103; JJ to Weaver, Dec. 23, 1924,
LIII
, p. 112; Ell, p. 685; SBP, Box 166 Folder 5, and Box 168 Folder 2. For delirium and hallucinations in scopolamine, see Daniel Safer and Richard Allen, “Central Effects of Scopolamine in Man,”

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