Unseen Joyce manuscripts bought by National library

Hundreds of notes and manuscripts, believed to be the greatest collection of work by the Irish novelist James Joyce, have been bought by the National Library in Dublin, it was announced today.

Among the papers, which arrived in Dublin from Paris with Arts Minister Síle de Valera today, were previously unseen drafts of the novel Ulysses.

The documents - more than 500 in total - were bought for £8m (€12.5m) from Alexis Leon, the son of Joyce’s former aide, the late Paul Leon, who recovered them from German-occupied Paris during the Second World War.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was at Dublin Airport to welcome the arrival of the collection, which was bought after 18 months of secret negotiations between the National Library and Alexis Leon, represented by Sotheby’s auction house.

Ms de Valera said the purchase of papers was the biggest ever made by a national cultural institution in Ireland.

She said: ‘‘Obtaining this unique material, which has never before been seen by the public or by Joyce scholars, will be acknowledged as a monumental event in Ireland’s literary and cultural history.

‘‘With this collection housed in the National Library of Ireland that institution - which Joyce himself knew well - will become a globally important and pre-eminent centre for the study of his work.’’

It is understood that National Library director, Brendan O’Donoghue, sealed the deal with Alexis Leon yesterday.

The papers include proofs and amended parts of Joyce’s last novel, Finnegan’s Wake, and early notebooks from Joyce’s time in Dublin at the turn of the 20th century before he wrote Dubliners.

The documents were retrieved from occupied Paris in 1940 by Joyce’s Paris-based friend, agent and legal advisor Paul Leon.

Joyce had left the papers behind when he fled the Nazi invasion, and Leon rescued them from Joyce’s landlord, who had put them up for auction to recover unpaid rent.

Today’s purchase, to which AIB donated about half of the cost, is the second major acquisition of Joyce material by the National Library of Ireland in recent years.

In December 2000 the Library acquired the manuscript of the ‘‘Circe’’ episode of Ulysses at auction in New York.

It also holds the first copy of the first edition of Ulysses, presented in 1952 by Harriet Shaw Weaver to whom Joyce himself had given it in 1922.

The new papers will be officially unveiled at the National Library in central Dublin tomorrow at noon.