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Eugène and Maria Jolas papers, 1879-1986

Abstract Or Scope

The Eugène and Maria Jolas Papers consist of manuscripts, letters, photographs, and printed materials relating to the work and lives of the two authors, to their publication, Transition magazine, and to their friend, James Joyce.
The first subgroup, the papers of Eugène Jolas, contains his correspondence with such persons as Kay Boyle, Raoul Hausmann, Raymond Queneau, and Jean Wahl, writings (articles, columns, drafts of an autobiography, and hundreds of poems in Enlgish, German, French, and Jolas' own invented language, Atlantica), and translations by of the works of writers such as Andre Breton and Gerard de Nerval.
This first subgroup also contains materials Jolas prepared for, and used during, his service in the Deutsche Allgemeine Nachrichten Agentur (DANA, but known in English as DENA), Personal Papers andPhotographs.
The second subgroup contains the archives of Maria Jolas. Among her her correspondence are letters from Samuel Beckett, Padraic Colum, the Duthuit family, Paul and Lucie Leon, the Matisse family, Nathalie Sarraute, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet.
The second subgroup also contains Maria Jolas' writings (including drafts of her autobiography), translations is made up of English translations of works by writers such as Rene Char, Robert Jaulin and Nathalie Sarraute and a number of poets who contributed to her "Multilingual Poets Project. The majority of her Subject Files concern the scholarlytreatment of James Joyce. Also included is a series of Personal Papers.
The third subgroup consists of a small group of materials documenting the life of "transition" magazine, which the Jolas' published from 1927-1938. The original magazine archives were destroyed during World War II. The material here documents the publication of several special projects and a short-lived revival of the magazine in the late 1940s.
The fourth subgroup gathers together materials from James Joyce left with the Jolas family shortly before he died, including letters to Joyce from Samuel Beckett and Ezra Pound, a draft of "Comeallyou," a typescript carbon of a French translation of "Anna Livia Plurabelle" done by Joyce,Philippe Soupault, Eugène Jolas, Yvan Goll, Samuel Beckett and Alfred Peron in 1932, a list of typographical corrections to Finnegans Wake made by Paul Leon in 1940 for a second edition of the book, and several photographs of the Joyce family.

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