The Outline Weighs the Impact of James Joyce's Grandson

B.D. McClay writes about the former executor to James Joyce's estate, Stephen Joyce (grandson), and the intricacies of gaining access to archival documents when they are guarded by a deceased author's family member. "Stephen Joyce, who died last Thursday, was James Joyce’s grandson and an implacable enemy of anyone who wanted to study the legendary Irish writer for almost any reason," writes McClay. Picking up there: 

Just nine when his grandfather died, Stephen Joyce assumed control of the Joyce estate after his father died in the ’70s. Though his ability to thwart scholars and Bloomsday fans diminished after 2012, when the copyright on most of Joyce’s work lapsed, Stephen Joyce still had the dubious distinction of being the most well-known of a funny list of characters: extremely obstinate literary executors.

Executors of literary estates become famous for only one reason: being difficult. The late Paul Zukofsky, son of the late poet Louis Zukofsky, used to host on his website an open letter to anyone hoping to study his father’s work which warned: “I urge you to not work on Louis Zukofsky, and prefer that you do not.… You will be far more appreciated working on some author whose copyright holder(s) will actually cherish you, and/or your work. I do not.”

But even in the world of protective literary executors, Stephen Joyce’s behavior was extreme. Sure, Sylvia Plath’s husband, the poet Ted Hughes, burned two of her last two diaries, but he was personally involved with their contents. Stephen Joyce had no role in James Joyce’s life. In a 2006 article for the New Yorker, the journalist D.T. Max chronicled some of his actions in defense of his family’s privacy: denying “nearly every request to quote from unpublished letters”; suing scholars attempting to publish new editions of Ulysses; suing the Irish government for staging Bloomsday readings; and threatening one performance artist with a lawsuit for having “‘already infringed’ on the estate’s copyright,” presumably by having memorized a passage from Finnegans Wake.

Continue at The Outline.