Stephen Hero [1904-07] (pub. 1944)

Stephen Hero began as an autobiographical essay and thinly-veiled manifesto heralding the artistic self in a symbolist narrative with elements of literary theory and messianic prophecy under the title “A Portrait of the Artist”, composed on one day, 7 January 1904, and submitted for publication in the new magazine Dana, edited by John Eglinton [Magee] and Fred Ryan. When the editors rejected it - either on account of the sexual references or simply as incomprehensible, as Magee claimed - Joyce embarked on what his brother described as a ‘lying and raking autobiography’ upon which they bestowed the name Stephen Hero.

 The novel, which was mapped out in 63 chapters before Joyce left Dublin in Oct. 1904 [LII, 83], was actually commenced on 2 Feb. 1904 according to the Dublin Diary of Stanislaus Joyce - though this is now thought to be unreliable as regards the supposed contemporaneity of the entries and the events described. (In other words, adulterations - if not positive forgery of his own diary entries - made by Stanislaus in long retrospect are now suspected.)

 Composition went on rapidly in Dublin and continued apace in Pola and Trieste. Already by 29 March 1904, according to Stanislaus, Joyce had completed 11 [eleven] chapters - but this seems improbably high for barely two months work. Chapter XII was completed by 31 October - actually in Zurich (Oct. 11-12th) en route to Trieste, by his own epistolary account [Letters, II, 69]. Chapter XXIV was complete by 5 June 1905. In March 1906, Joyce wrote to Grant Richards speaking of a manuscript of twenty-five [25] chapters comprising an estimated 150,000 words and over 914 pages. Presumably Chapter XXV was complete by this date, though probably finished earlier if written directly after Chapter XXIV. Confusion is added by the erroneous division of Chapter XXIV in two by Theodore Spencer, resulting in Chapter XXV appearing as Chapter XXVI in his 1944 edition and subsequent re-issues.

 In February 1905 Joyce professed himself ‘not quite happy’ with Stephen Hero as the title and considered ‘restoring the original title of the article A Portrait of the Artist’. The draft-autobiography was abandoned in 1906 and recommenced in a much shorter form of which Joyce spoke to Stanislaus in September 1907. Presumably this writing went on in 1908. Possibly the greater part of the condensed version later issued as A Portrait [... &c.] (1916) was written at this time. It appears that the resultant MS was thrown in the fire but saved by ‘a family fire brigade’ in 1911 or 1912 [Letters, I, 136.]

 After a time, according to his own account [idem.], Joyce resumed writing by piecing the pages thus rescued together - at least, he later chose to give Miss Weaver the impression that this is how the final manuscript was produced. There is no evidence to suggest when this resumption took place but the completion of the novel in time for serial publication in The Egoist during Feb. 1914-Sept. 1915 suggests that it must have ante-dated the letter from Ezra Pound of Dec. 1913 which led to the publication of the text.

This fire-story told above certainly does not apply to the Stephen Hero MS, which is free from burn-marks in the form in which it was sold to Hrvard Library by Sylvia Beach who had it from Joyce as a token of respect after the 1922 first publication of Ulysses under her Shakespeare and Company shop’s imprint and who later lost patience and sold it without consulting with him. A correspondence between Professor Theodore Spencer and Joyce followed in which Samuel Beckett responded for the writer and this is quoted in Spencer’s introduction to the 1944 [Ist] edition of the draft [see extracts].

The dates “Dublin 1904 / Trieste 1914” given on the last page of the book when it appeared in 1916 establish Joyce’s conception of the composition of Stephen Hero and A Portrait as a continuous process originating with the essay of 1904 which shares a title with the final production.

completed by 31 Oct. 1904 (Letters, II, p.69 - viz., ‘I have finished (in Zurich) chap. XII’). [JAJ arrives in Pola, 20 Oct.];

completed by 12 Dec. 1904 (Letters, II, p.74 - viz., the Mullingar episode acc. Ellmann’s note, idem.];

completed (Letter of 7 Feb. 1905,in Letters, II, 81 - viz., ‘now at Chap. XVII’);

considers reverting to the title A Portrait of the Artist (Letter of 28 Feb. 1905, in Letters, II, p.83 - viz., ‘not quite satisfied with the title Stephen Hero’);

completed by 15 March 1905 (Letters, II, p.86 - ‘finished Chapters XV, XVI. XVII. XVII and will send them if you like’);

[Note: at this point the chapter numbers depart from those in Joyce’s correspondence since Theodore Spencer erroneously introduced a new chapter division into Chapter XVIII in his edition of 1944 which was perpetuated in the revised edition pf 1965. The corrected chapter numbers are given in square-brackets. [For rationale, see under Hans Walter Gabler - infra.]

completed by 4 April 1905 (Letters, II, p.87 - ‘am now on Chap. XXI’);

Chap. XXI
[corr. XX]*

completed by 2 or 3 May 1905 (Letters, II, p.88 - ‘I am now at Chap. XXII’);

Chap. XXIV*
[corr. XXIII]

no data;

completed by 7 June 1905 (Letter [dated by post-mark], in Letters, II, p.91 - viz., ‘Have now finished Chapter XXIV’);

‘The other day I was thinking about my novel. Is there any point continuing it?’ (Letter of 10 Jan. 1907);

‘He [JAJ] told me he would omit all the first chapters and begin with Stephen, whom he will call Daly, going to school and that he would write the book in five chapters - long chapters.’ (Stanislaus Joyce’s diary for 8 Sept. 1907; quoted in Ellmann, James Joyce, 1965, p.274; 1982 Edn., p.264.)

‘If only my book is published then I will plunge into my novel and finish it. ‘ (22 Aug. 1912; Letters, II, p.310.)

‘The “original” original I tore up and threw in to the stove about eight years ago [viz., 1911/12] in a fit or rage on account of the trouble over Dubliners.’ (6 Jan. 1920; Letters, I, p.136.)

See Joyce’s letter to Grant Richards of 13 March 1906: ‘You suggest that I should write a novel in some sense autobiographical [131]. I have already written nearly a thousand pages of such a novel, as I think I told you, 914 pages to be accurate. I calculate that these twenty-five chapters, about half the book, run to 150,000 words. It is quite impossible for me in present circumstances to think the rest of the book, much less to write it. This novel also has the defect of being about Ireland.’ (Letters, II, pp.131-32.)

Note: Hans Walter Gabler [Hans Walter Gabler, Preface, A Portrait [ ... &c.], in James Joyce Archive, Vol. 8] corrected the chapter divisions which Theodore Spencer erroneously imposed on the printed edition Stephen Hero (Cape 1944, &c.) [See further under Notes, supra.] On this basis, Chaps. XX-XXIV in Spenser’s edition become Chaps. XIX-XXIII while Joyce’s chapter-numbers, as above, can be taken as authentic.

Note that Joyce tells his brother in a letter of 12 July 1905: ‘the incident in Chapter XXIII where Stephen makes “love” to Emma Clery I consider a remarkable piece of writing.’ (Letters, II, 1966, p.96.) To this, Ellmann adds a footnote: ‘Actually Chapter XXIV of Stephen Hero’ - following Spencer’s chapter-division and thereby implying that Joyce has made an error (idem.). However, Gabler’s realignment of chapter-numbers makes it clear that Joyce made no error and Ellmann was simply misled by Spencer’s edition.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was serialised monthly in 26 issues of Egoist, Vol 1, No. 3 (2 Feb. 1914) to Vol. II, No. 9 (1 Sept. 1915) with a hiatus after Chap. 3; publication resumes November 1914; 4 MS pages with alternative ending, 1914.

Note: Richard Aldington wrote to F. S. [Franky] Flint, ‘Take Joyce’s serial - that ought to have been printed in very much larger chunks, and the paper [Egoist] ought to have been increased in size so as to keep the same amount of other contributions.’ (Letter of 11 Aug. 1915; addressed from Hampstead to Texas (Norman T. Gales, ed., Richard Aldington: An Autobiography in Letters, Pennsylvania State UP 1992, p.17.)

• The Tristan and Isolde sketch of late March 1923 was merged in a complex manner with the Mamalujo sketch of the same year to create II.4 §2, so there is no II.4 §1 in the final book. This took place in 1938.
• I.3 §2 and I.3 §3 were probably drafted as alternative versions of the one passage : but rather than use one and discard the other, Joyce conflated the two into one continuous passage.
• I.5 §2, The Revered Letter, was subsequently removed from I.5 and inserted in 1938 into the final chapter as IV.1 §4.
• I.5 §3, The Delivery of the Letter, was subsequently removed from I.5 and became the node from which Book III ramified.
• II.2 §4 was the original version of Scribbledehobbles, which Joyce abandoned in 1934. He replaced it with a new version, II.2 §5, in the winter of 1937-38