Author Description

James Joyce’s last personal library, from Paris, comprises over four hundred titles and is now part of the Poetry Collection at the library of the University at Buffalo in New York. Connecting the authors' interests in Joyce, bibliography, libraries, and circus history, they noticed in the catalogue of his library the book titles Circus Parade, London 1928 and Shanty Irish, New York, 1928, written by Jim Tully. Tully signed and inscribed them “To James Joyce From whom one is proud to be his countryman Jim Tully Paris 1929” and “To James Joyce this tale of an American Irish— by his admirer and friend Jim Tully" and presented them to him in Paris. So began their journey to investigate how this prolific American writer met the great Irish author.