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Letter reveals Joyce's sexual side
Joyce and Barnacle married in 1931.
LONDON, England (AP) -- An anonymous bidder paid the equivalent of $445,000 for a raunchy letter written by the author James Joyce to his partner and lifelong love, Nora Barnacle, in 1909.
The explicit letter was the best-known of several Joyce items auctioned by Sotheby's on Thursday. The top bidder paid £240,800, more than four times the expected price.
Sotheby's said it was a record for a 20th-century letter in English sold at auction.
Joyce scholars had long known about the December 1, 1909, letter because Joyce referred to its graphically sexual content in subsequent letters to Barnacle, but it had been presumed destroyed.
A scholar discovered it by chance in the pages of an old book held by Joyce's brother Stanislaus. In it, Joyce described in detail his desire for Barnacle. He calls her "my darling little blackguard," among other things, and signs it, "heaven forgive my madness, Jim."
The letter is exceptional in part because of Joyce's well-known distaste for obscene comments or jokes, Sotheby's said.
Two of Joyce's other, less erotic, love letters to Barnacle were also auctioned off Thursday. The first, from September 12, 1904 -- the first known letter from the writer to his future wife -- fetched $62,000, while a second, written a month later went for $155,000.
Joyce and Barnacle met in Dublin on June 16, 1904 -- the day on which Joyce's masterwork "Ulysses" is set -- and left together for continental Europe in October that year, never to return together to Ireland. They were married in 1931, a decade before Joyce's death.
Joyce scholars dissect the relationship between the two almost as thoroughly as they interpret and reinterpret his writings, particularly his masterwork "Ulysses."
Also sold Thursday was another long-lost document that gave insight into Joyce's writings -- the 1910 proofs for the original version of his first major work, the short-story collection "Dubliners." These sold for $207,000.
One of the earliest published copies of "Ulysses" sold for $155,000. The book, a gift from Joyce to his brother, is inscribed: "To Stannie Jim Paris 11 February 1922."
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