The upcoming auction at Sotheby’s is making
me nauseous. I want to purchase James Joyce’s
spectacles. I can’t get them out of my head.
I wrote a poem about them last night. The
auction estimate for them is 3,000 – 5,000
pounds. Can I afford that? No!! I’m unem-
ployed but it isn’t an impossible amount like
50,000. I could try to find a lender and promise
interest and timely payments. I could buy lottery
tickets. I’d only have to match four numbers or
so to get 5,000. I could resort to petty crime.
Devise some internet scheme. Write papers
for grad students. Rob a small bank.

There is something so sexy and endearing about
glasses. If you love someone, and they wear
glasses,when they take them off, one is filled
with an enormous sense of desire and tenderness,
a deadly combination. James Joyce’s spectacles.
Oh my.

Love Letter Found

In Ellman’s biography of Joyce he writes "Joyce's
letter of 1 December 1909 has not survived".

That letter has been found “discovered tucked
into a book among an almost painfully personal
collection of relics linked to the author”. The
collection is owned by the family of Stanislaus Joyce.

An article in the Guardian about the find,
does not mention when or if the contents of the
letter will be published. It’s an important letter,
written during Joyce’s visit to Dublin in 1909,
a time of jealousy and insecurity for him, and
one that produced some of the most beautiful
and erotic love letters ever written.

The letter will be auctioned at Sotheby's in July.