Pomes Penyeach
In July 1935 James Joyce wrote to Professor John Howley, the librarian at University College Galway, regarding his gift to the university library of his book Pomes Penyeach. Joyce wrote that he ‘wished to offer a copy to your library [not only] because the designer of the lattices is a granddaughter of your city and the writer of the verses bears one of its tribal names...’
Pomes Penyeach is a collection of thirteen poems which was originally published in 1927. In 1931 it was suggested to Joyce that a limited edition be published with illuminations by Joyce’s daughter Lucia. Twenty-five copies were printed in the summer of 1932 by the Obelisk Press. They were printed on an iridescent Japanese paper made from silk and bamboo and the poems were reproduced in a facsimile of Joyce’s writing. The initial letter of each poem was illuminated by Lucia.
Joyce’s uncle-in-law, Michael Healy, acted as intermediary. In a letter to the librarian in August 1935 Healy wrote “it may amuse you to know that a few days ago Mr Joyce was informed by the publisher that a short time ago a copy of it was put up for auction in England and the show catalogue informed would be purchasers that the book was an ‘indecent Japanese paper”’.
‘A flower given to my daughter’
