James Joyce

by Richard, Ellmann

Paper Book, 1983

Status

Available

Genres

Publication

Oxford, Oxford University, [1983]

Description

Richard Ellmann has revised and expanded his definitive work on Joyce's life to include newly discovered primary material, including details of a failed love affair, a limerick about Samuel Beckett, a dream notebook, previously unknown letters, and much more.

User reviews

LibraryThing member jonfaith

Previous training and hubris allowed me to waltz into the Joycean buzzsaw completely blind. That summer of 1994 I was recovering from knee surgery, catching a bad relationship in the solar plexus and discovering the World Cup. This tome was such a wellspring of delight during the hot, heady, and

hobbled days of that summer.

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LibraryThing member OmieWise

THE biography of Joyce, and a model of literary biography in general.

LibraryThing member pointsman

If you are in any interested in getting into Joyce, this book is pretty much invaulable. A towering book of detail about the man and his influences. Ellmann also devotes a chapter to giving an analyses of his major works (except for Exiles and Finnegans Wake), which is exetremely helpful. His

chapter on Ulysses is very benficial for first time readers though by no means an absolute introduction to the certain opaque prose in the book, just themes, influences and certain stylistic elements.

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LibraryThing member dgt

The definition of a comprehensive biography. My personal favorite review of this massive tome? "If someone stood next to Joyce at a urinal, Ellman interviewed him."

LibraryThing member jensenmk82

An essential work, but much overrated. Ellmann is not entirely reliable on important points, due to a curiously persistent obtuseness toward and misunderstanding of Joyce's sense of his own mission.

LibraryThing member mykl-s

This may be the first literary biography I read.

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