VIII.B.
VIII.B: Other Notebooks: Trieste Notebook: Trieste Commonplace Book of Excerpts in French and English (1919–1920)1
Material Description and Collation
The manuscript is a copybook with marbled black-and-white board covers, with a white paper label with scalloped edges pasted on the front cover recto. It consists of 22 leaves (44 pages) of ruled paper with red printed horizontal lines; the sheets are stitched 3 times in the center and folded in half vertically to form the notebook. Joyce wrote on pp. [1r]–[7r] in black ink; the remaining pages are blank.
Measurements
The manuscript measures 21.5 x approximately 17.4 cm.
Contents
The manuscript consists of faircopy transcriptions of excerpts as follows:
| MS VIII.B | Contents |
|---|---|
| p. [1r]: | Albert Samain’s "Arpege" and ["Heures d’Ete, VI"] from Au Jardin de l’Infante |
| p. [1v]: | Albert Samain’s "Silence" from Au Jardin de l’Infante |
| p. [2r]: | Under the title "Divagations," 12 lines copied from Stephane Mallarmé’s writings and his "Soupir" |
| p. [2v]: | "Brise Marine" by Mallarmé |
| p. [3r]: | Arthur Rimbaud’s "Les Voyelles" from Illuminations |
| pp. [3v]–[4r]: | 6 lines from Albert Samain’s "Aux Flancs du Vase"and"Mnasyle"fromAux Flancs du Vase and 9 lines of poetry from Samain |
| p. [4r]: | 6 lines of Leon Bloy’s Le Salut par le juifs |
| pp. [4v]–[5r]: | Excerpts from Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean |
| pp. [5v]–[7r]: | Excerpts from Pater’s Imaginary Portraits |
| pp. [7v]–[22v]: | Blank |
Dating
The contents do not allow for a precise dating of the manuscript but Joyce presumably wrote out these excerpts from 17 October 1919 to 3 July 1920 in Trieste.
Other Markings
"Quaderno | di | James Joyce | Via della Sanità | No. 2 Trieste | Italia." was written on the label on the front cover recto in black ink, probably in Nora Joyce’s hand. There is a stationers’ mark "No. 176 24 Blatt | Feuillets" stamped in the upper left corner of the front cover verso and "30" was written in lead pencil in the upper left corner of the label, possibly by the stationer.
Publication
This manuscript has been reproduced in black and white photo-facsimile on JJA 3.375–389 and the excerpts from p. [2v] were published in David Hayman, Joyce et Mallarmé (Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1956), vol. 2, pp. 109–110.
Notes
The spine is no longer intact; most of the paper has worn away, exposing the boards, and the cover has nearly split in two along the spine; the text block has nearly separated from the covers, although the text block remains stable. There are rust stains from paperclips on pp. [4v] and [5r].
- La Hune, item 67; Slocum & Cahoon, item E.12.c.