SOURCE: Fitch, Noel Riley. “The First Ulysses.” In James Joyce: The Augmented Ninth, edited by Bernard Benstock, pp. 349-61. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1988.

In the following essay, Fitch traces the events that led up to Beach sponsoring and managing the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company.

The letter is dated 1 April 1921—its letterhead reads Shakespeare and Company, rue Dupuytren—the tone is the cultivated one of a breathless, youthful daughter to her “Dearest Little Mother,” first benefactor of the bookshop and lending library called Shakespeare and Company:

I've been trying to finish up a letter to you for such a long time but there have been so many to write every day to publishers and books to order and send and you must forgive me mother dear. It isn't that I ever forget you for a minute and I know you've...