Skip to Content

VI.C.7.

VI.C.7: "Work in Progress"/Finnegans Wake Scribal Notebook (1935)


Material Description

The manuscript has marbled black-and-white covers over boards, with a red cloth spine, which is worn but intact, and the edges of all the leaves are speckled blue-and-white. The front and back flyleaves are plain white, unlined paper. The notes are in the hand of Mme Raphael in black ink. Joyce used red as well as blue colored crayons to cross through the notes he had used in his manuscripts.


Collation

The manuscript consists of 138 leaves (276 pages) of blue horizontally ruled paper, 12 stitched gatherings (the 1st and 12th gatherings are composed of 18 pages and the 2nd through 11th gatherings are composed of 24 pages); none of the pages are detached. All of the pages are inscribed, except the front flyleaf verso and back flyleaf recto that are blank.


Measurements

The manuscript measures 18.8 x 14.5 cm.


Contents

The notebook contains transcriptions of Joyce’s notes in the following primary notebooks (note that the "missing notebook" that Spielberg catalogued as Buffalo MS VI.D.4 are actually four notebooks that are now NLI MSS 36,639/03–05/B):

Scribal Notebooks Primary Notebooks JJA
MS VI.C.7, pp. [001]–[019] MS VI.B.7, p. [198]–back flyleaf recto 41.373–377
MS VI.C.7, pp. [020]–[135] MS VI.B.8, pp. [001]–[240] 41.377–406
MS VI.C.7, pp. [136]–[198] NLI MS 36,639/05/A, pp. [3r]–[30r] 41.406–422
MS VI.C.7, pp. [199]–[201] NLI MS 36,639/05/A, pp. [1r]–[6r] 41.422–423
MS VI.C.7, pp. [202]–[234] NLI MS 36,639/05/B, pp. [1r]–[12v] 41.423–431
MS VI.C.7, pp. [235]–[254] NLI MS 36,639/04, pp. [1v]–[12v] 41.431–436
MS VI.C.7, pp. [255]–[269] NLI MS 36,639/03, pp. [1r]–[15v] 41.436–440
MS VI.C.7, pp. [270]–[276] MS VI.B.12, front cover verso–p. [006] 41.440–441

Pagination

The pages are not numbered.


Dating

Mme Raphael prepared the transcriptions in this notebook in early 1935 in Paris (TD 33), probably before MS VI.C.6, and Joyce used the notebook from 1935 to 1938.


Other Markings

The notebook was marked "7" in blue crayon on the back cover recto, probably by Joyce. He wrote "James Joyce | 7 rue Edmond Valentin | Paris" on the front flyleaf recto in black ink and "October ’37" on the back cover recto in blue ink. Nora Joyce wrote "28 Mallord Street | Chelsea 5 WC" on the back flyleaf verso in black ink. There is a stamped purple stationer’s mark on the front cover recto that reads: "195".


Publication

The manuscript has been reproduced in black and white photo-facsimile in JJA 41.372–442.


Notes

There is a printed stationer’s label on the front cover verso that reads: "Papeterie Imprimerie | – RELIURE – | A. Roques | & Fils | 1 & 3, Rue de Condé | 4, Rue de l’Odéon | PARIS (VIe) | DANTON 02-50".