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JOYCE, James Augustine Aloysius (1882-1941). Autograph postcard signed ('James Joyce') to Sean O'Casey ('Dear Mr O'Casey'), 34 rue des Vignes, Paris, [26 May 1939], written in green ink, 1½ pages, oblong 12mo . Provenance : Property of Mrs Sean O'Casey, sale, Sotheby's London, 15 December 1982, lot 229.
JOYCE, James Augustine Aloysius (1882-1941). Autograph postcard signed ('James Joyce') to Sean O'Casey ('Dear Mr O'Casey'), 34 rue des Vignes, Paris, [26 May 1939], written in green ink, 1½ pages, oblong 12mo . Provenance : Property of Mrs Sean O'Casey, sale, Sotheby's London, 15 December 1982, lot 229. THE MISATTTRIBUTION OF FINNEGANS WAKE TO O'CASEY -- 'A HAPPY AND AMUSING OMEN'. Joyce encloses a clipping from the Irish Times (not present), with 'a curious misprint -- if it is a misprint', which announces ' Finnegans Wake , by Sean O'Casey' in its 'Publications Received' column (the work was published in London by Faber and Faber on 4 May 1939). Joyce hopes that the error 'may be prophetical and that we may some day meet', adding that once Nora Joyce has recovered from influenza, they are going to see O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock at the Theatre de l'Oeuvre: 'if I find that it is attributed to me I shall certainly send you on the programme', and concluding with the hope that O'Casey will treat the error as 'a happy and amusing omen'. On 30 May 1939, O'Casey replied that he was glad that Joyce was not 'annoyed at "Finnegans Wake" being put against my name. My mind is still far away from the power of writing such a book. I wish I could say that such a power is mine', but that he does not think that the 'misprint' is an error: 'I know that many of Dublin's Literary Clique dislike me, and they hate you (why, God only knows), so that "misprint" was a bit of a joke' (S. O'Casey The Letters , London: 1975, I, p. 800, reprinting this card on p. 799 with minor errors). O'Casey had signed the 1927 Protest Against Samuel Roth's Piracy of Ulysses , and the two men had attempted a meeting in 1929 (which was cancelled due to O'Casey's illness), and the hoped-for opportunity to meet never occurred. O'Casey continued to praise and promote Joyce's work, and, in response to a request from the editor of the journal Books Abroad for a nomination for the most important books written since 1918, O'Casey proposed Joyce for Ulysses and Finnegans Wake : 'They are unique, and, I think, tremendous. There can be no question of the artistry of the man, of his strange originality, and of the rich tragic and comic poetry that blossoms in all that he has written' (quoted in: C. Murray Seán O'Casey , Dublin: 2004, p. 500). Ironically, the production of Juno and the Paycock referred to by Joyce was at Aurélien Lugné-Poë's Théâtre de l'Oeuvre; Joyce -- who admired Lugné-Poë's productions of Ibsen -- had proposed a production of Jenny Serruys Bradley's translation of Joyce's Exiles to Lugné-Poë in 1920, but the impressario decided that it would not be profitable, and the proposed production was cancelled.