The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham Page B
Authors: Kevin Birmingham
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manuscript before it was published—before anyone even
wanted
to publish it—summoned Pound’s thrill of discovery and his missionary zeal. For what Joyce really gave Pound was a galvanized sense of confidence, a reassurance strong enough to overcome any nagging doubts about his highest literary ambitions: if an artist could write such prose in the middle of a brutal war, then Pound’s plans for a twentieth-century renaissance were not as fanciful as they seemed. And if
A Portrait
couldn’t find a publisher, then it was clear beyond all doubt that his primary obstacle was not talent or vision or even money but the rank stupidity of the vermin infesting the publishing industry.
Miss Weaver’s reaction was more temperate. When she exhausted publishing options in England, she raised one last possibility with Joyce: “I have been wondering whether
The Egoist
could do it.” The Egoist Press had published only the magazine and a pamphlet of poems, and Miss Weaver emphasized that their edition could not approach anything produced by an actual book publisher. Since that possibility seemed closed, she ventured that the Egoist Press might risk publishing Joyce’s book, assuming she was granted the authority from “the other members of our staff and the directors of our small publishing company”—namely, Dora Marsden.
It was a bold plan. But even Miss Weaver’s fortitude could only go so far, for while
The
Egoist
could take care of financing, advertising and distribution, someone needed to print it. Weaver approached printer after printer only to have each one refuse, sometimes brusquely. “We could not for one moment entertain any idea of printing such a production,” Billing & Sons wrote to her. “We are convinced that you would run very great risk in putting such a book on the market,” and they advised her to scour the text and cut any objectionable passages. Over the next few months, thirteen printers refused to print
A Portrait
in its entirety. Every time a printer suggested an expurgated version, Miss Weaver declined.
Pound, who was nothing if not resourceful, came up with an idea: they could leave large blank spaces in the text wherever a printer wished to cut words or passages. Then they could type out all of the deleted portions on quality paper and paste the omitted words into every single copy—“And damn the censors.” Joyce thought it was ingenious. The printers, unfortunately, thought it was madcap.
England’s rejection of
A Portrait
made Pound feel that, after years of relentless socializing, he was still an outsider. He had insinuated himself, to one degree or another, into an array of modernist magazines—
The
Egoist
,
The
New Age
,
Poetry
,
Poetry and Drama
,
North American Review
and others—only to find that he was still at the mercy of “Victorian-minded” editors, printers and publishers. When Joyce implored Pound in 1916 to get a handful of his poems published in any magazine that could pay, Pound responded that he had run out of connections in England. “There is no editor whom I wouldn’t cheerfully fry in oil and none who wouldn’t as cheerfully do the same by me.” What Ezra Pound wanted was his own magazine, a magazine that would bring the Vortex together and publish their material without fear of censorship.
It was difficult to see, but prospects were beginning to turn for Pound and his young cohort, and no one’s prospects had shifted more dramatically than Joyce’s. In just two years, he had gone from being an unpublished novelist teaching Berlitz classes to being a writer with zealous allies, a small but avid magazine audience and—rarest of all assets—a fearless, accommodating publisher. After so many years toiling in exile, a viable future as a writer was starting to seem real. It may not have been much—Pound, Weaver and Dora Marsden were only marginal figures in a world preoccupied by war—but a supportive coterie was enough to encourage Joyce to venture much
wanted
to publish it—summoned Pound’s thrill of discovery and his missionary zeal. For what Joyce really gave Pound was a galvanized sense of confidence, a reassurance strong enough to overcome any nagging doubts about his highest literary ambitions: if an artist could write such prose in the middle of a brutal war, then Pound’s plans for a twentieth-century renaissance were not as fanciful as they seemed. And if
A Portrait
couldn’t find a publisher, then it was clear beyond all doubt that his primary obstacle was not talent or vision or even money but the rank stupidity of the vermin infesting the publishing industry.
Miss Weaver’s reaction was more temperate. When she exhausted publishing options in England, she raised one last possibility with Joyce: “I have been wondering whether
The Egoist
could do it.” The Egoist Press had published only the magazine and a pamphlet of poems, and Miss Weaver emphasized that their edition could not approach anything produced by an actual book publisher. Since that possibility seemed closed, she ventured that the Egoist Press might risk publishing Joyce’s book, assuming she was granted the authority from “the other members of our staff and the directors of our small publishing company”—namely, Dora Marsden.
It was a bold plan. But even Miss Weaver’s fortitude could only go so far, for while
The
Egoist
could take care of financing, advertising and distribution, someone needed to print it. Weaver approached printer after printer only to have each one refuse, sometimes brusquely. “We could not for one moment entertain any idea of printing such a production,” Billing & Sons wrote to her. “We are convinced that you would run very great risk in putting such a book on the market,” and they advised her to scour the text and cut any objectionable passages. Over the next few months, thirteen printers refused to print
A Portrait
in its entirety. Every time a printer suggested an expurgated version, Miss Weaver declined.
Pound, who was nothing if not resourceful, came up with an idea: they could leave large blank spaces in the text wherever a printer wished to cut words or passages. Then they could type out all of the deleted portions on quality paper and paste the omitted words into every single copy—“And damn the censors.” Joyce thought it was ingenious. The printers, unfortunately, thought it was madcap.
England’s rejection of
A Portrait
made Pound feel that, after years of relentless socializing, he was still an outsider. He had insinuated himself, to one degree or another, into an array of modernist magazines—
The
Egoist
,
The
New Age
,
Poetry
,
Poetry and Drama
,
North American Review
and others—only to find that he was still at the mercy of “Victorian-minded” editors, printers and publishers. When Joyce implored Pound in 1916 to get a handful of his poems published in any magazine that could pay, Pound responded that he had run out of connections in England. “There is no editor whom I wouldn’t cheerfully fry in oil and none who wouldn’t as cheerfully do the same by me.” What Ezra Pound wanted was his own magazine, a magazine that would bring the Vortex together and publish their material without fear of censorship.
It was difficult to see, but prospects were beginning to turn for Pound and his young cohort, and no one’s prospects had shifted more dramatically than Joyce’s. In just two years, he had gone from being an unpublished novelist teaching Berlitz classes to being a writer with zealous allies, a small but avid magazine audience and—rarest of all assets—a fearless, accommodating publisher. After so many years toiling in exile, a viable future as a writer was starting to seem real. It may not have been much—Pound, Weaver and Dora Marsden were only marginal figures in a world preoccupied by war—but a supportive coterie was enough to encourage Joyce to venture much
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