Times Literary Supplement (14
November
1929) 919.
Samuel Beckett
"15
15 Samuel Beckett to Roger Little, 18 May 1983, cited by Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 64. 711
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Profiles
Frances Beckett Sinclair (known as Fanny and as Cissie, 1880-1951),
artist and musician, was the only sister ofSB's father William Beckett. She studied painting at the Dublin MetropolitanSchool of Art and at the Academie Colarossi in Paris in 1904, along with her good friends Estella Solomons and Beatrice Elvery (later Lady Glenavy). As Fannie Beckett, she exhibited her paintings in the Royal Hibernian Academy (1897, 1901-1908). In 1908, she married William Abraham (Boss)Sinclair, an art and antiques dealer; their home in Baily, Howth, Co. Dublin was a gathering-place for writers and artists. TheSinclairs moved to Kassel, Germany, in the early 1920s, where SB frequently visited them, sharing in their family and artistic life. In his Aunt Cissie, SB found a mature confidante with whom he could share interests in literature, art, and music. CissieSinclair traveled between Dublin and Kassel in 1931-1932, a time when personal difficulties, economic depression, and growing anti-Semitism were making life increasingly difficult in Germany. After the death of their daughter Ruth MargaretSinclair (known as Peggy) in May 1933, the family returned to Dublin in June. SB remained close to the Sinclairs, especially during Boss's illness and death in 1937; when Cissie was confined by rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson's disease in her later years,SB was particularly attentive and visited her whenever
he was in Ireland.
Morris Sinclair (known as Sunny or Sonny Sinclair, 1918-2007) was
SB's first cousin, the only son of Frances (Cissie) and William (Boss) Sinclair. Despite the twelve-year age difference, the cousins were close. Sinclair and his family moved permanently from Germany to Dublin in
1933. SB helped him prepare for his examinations in Modern Languages (German and French) at Trinity College Dublin. Sinclair was a gifted violinist and studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. His father and sister Peggy had died of tuberculosis, so when Sinclair became ill in autumn 1936, it was arranged for him to go to the more favorable climate ofSouth Africa (1937-1938) as a private tutor. He completed his studies at TCD in winter 1940. In 1945,Sinclair received a scholarship to study in Paris; as he hesitated about a thesis subject,SB suggested that he might write on Sartre and the influences of Husserl and Kierkegaard, offering to introduce him to Sartre. From 1948 to 1952, Sinclair worked for UNESCO, first in English translation and editing and then as a writer and producer for radio broadcasts in German. He then moved to Geneva,
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where he worked in the Public Information Office of the World Health Organization (1952-1971), becoming Director of Public Information (1971-1974). He corresponded with SB and often visited him in Paris.
Ruth Margaret Sinclair (known as Peggy, 1911-1933), daughter of Frances (Cissie) and William (Boss) Sinclair, was SB's first cousin. When her family moved to Kassel in the early 1920s, SB often visited. SB and Peggy were attracted to each other when she visited Dublin in mid-summer of 1928. Peggy studied art, music, and movement at the Schule Hellerau-Laxenburg, near Vienna, where SB visited her in September 1928 before beginning his appointment at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, but by early 1929 their intimacy had ended. She figures in several of SB's early poems and many of her qualities are reflected in the character of Smeraldina-Rima in Dream of Fair to Middling Women and "The Smeraldina's Billet-Doux," first pub lished in More Pricks Than Kicks. Peggy Sinclair died of tuberculosis in Germany in May 1933.
William Abraham Sinclair (known as Boss, 1882-1937),Jewish, an art and antiques dealer, SB's uncle by marriage to his aunt Frances (Cissie) Sinclair, was an amateur violinist and a member of the Dublin Musical Society; he had been active in the Republican movement. They lived in Howth, Co. Dublin, before their move in the early 1920s to Kassel, Germany, where he dealt in contemporary German art. Sinclair published Painting (1918), contributed art criticism to the Irish Review, lectured on art, and taught English. SB grew close to the Sinclairs during his visits to Kassel, appreciating their warmth, their easy ways, and their encouragement of his writing. In the early 1930s, economic depression and anti-Semitism made life in Germany inhospitable; Sinclair returned to Dublin in the summer of 1933 after the death of his daughter Margaret (Peggy) Sinclair. He died from tuberculosis in 1937. Fulfilling a death-bed promise to Boss, his twin brother Henry Sinclair pursued a lawsuit against Oliver St. John Gogarty, who had libeled them and their grandfather in his book As I Was Going Down Sackville Street; SB gave testimony in the case in November 1937.
Estella Solomons(1882-1968),Irishpainter,wasmarriedtoSeumas O'Sullivan, but used her maiden name professionally. She was a
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political activist who became involved in the Easter Rising and the War of Independence. She studied with William Orpen at the Metropolitan School ofArt in Dublin, and with Walter Osborne at the Royal Hibernian Academy, and in London. Solomons painted portraits of many Irish liter ary and artistic figures, including Jack B. Yeats, and showed her work regularly at the Royal Hibernian Academy Exhibitions. She was named an Honorary Royal Hibernian Academician. SB attended the opening of Solomons's exhibition (with her cousin Louise Jacobs and friend Mary Duncan) at the Arlington Gallery in 1935. Having studied Art together, Estella Solomons and Frances (Cissie) Sinclair were close friends. Estella Solomons took an interest in SB and his work, and her sister the singer Sophie Jacobs (nee Solomons, 1887-1972) befriended SB in the 1930s in Paris and London. SB occasionally visited the home of Solomons and O'Sullivan, "The Grange," in Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin.
Francis Stuart (ne Henry Francis Montgomery Stuart, 1902-2000),
Australian-born Irish novelist, poet, and dramatist, converted to
Catholicism in 1920, and was married to Iseult MacBride, the daughter
ofMaudGonne. WithA. J. Leventhal,CecilSalkeld,andothers,hebegan
the short-lived literary magazine Tomorrow (1924). SB's letters mention,
among Stuart's prolific early writings, the novels Women and God (1931),
which was dedicated to Thomas McGreevy; The Coloured Dome (1932);
and The Great Squire (1939). In 1939, Stuart gave a series of academic
lectures in Germany, and then taught English and Irish Literature in
Berlin in 1940. From 1942 to January 1944, Stuart read German radio
broadcasts aimed at Ireland. Although Stuart claimed that he wrote to
SB in August 1942, and that SB replied, the letter has not been found.
After World War II, Stuart lived in Germany, France, and England; he
married Gertrude Meissner in 1954, returning to Ireland in 1958. He is
perhaps best known for his book Black List Section H (1971). Although
"men ofdiffering viewpoints," he and SB met occasionally in Paris after
16
Jean Thomas (1900-1983), French educator, entered the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1920, became Agrege-repetiteur (1926-1932), and Secretaire general of the ENS (1933). He taught French Language and
16 Elbom. Francis Stuart. 8. 714
World War II.
Literature at the Sorbonne (1934-1936), French Literature at the University of Poitiers (1936-1938), and Modem Comparative Literature at the University of Lyon (1938-1944). Thomas published studies of Diderot, Musset, and Sainte-Beuve. He was appointed as Directeur du cabinet du Ministre de ! 'Education Nationale (October 1944) and Chef du service des relations universitaires et artistiques avec l'etranger (1945); having been a member of the French delegation to the constituting conference of UNESCO, he became its Director of Cultural Activities (1947-1954), and then Assistant Director General of UNESCO (1955-1960). In 1932, Thomas wrote a letter of reference for SB, and in his position with UNESCO suggested SB for various translation projects during the 1950s, most notably the English translation of The Mexican Anthology edited by Octavio Paz. Thomas's eminence in French public and international education culminated in his appointment as President de la Commission de laRepublique Frarn;aise pour ! 'education, la science, et la culture (1972-1980).
Arthur Geoffrey Thompson (known to SB as Geoffrey, 1905-1976) was, with his brother Alan, a childhood friend of SB; they studied together at Portora Royal School and Trinity College Dublin. They shared interests in music, literature, and sports, and, while students at TCD, attended the Abbey Theatre together. Thompson qualified in Medicine at TCD in 1928, then studied Biochemistry in London and Paris as a Rockefeller Research Fellow. Returning to Dublin in 1930, he took up the position of Physician at Baggot St. Hospital. Thompson became increasingly interested in mental illness manifested as physical symptoms, and moved to London in 1934 to train in psychoanalysis, a specialty that could not be pursued in Dublin at that time. He was resident Senior House Physician at Bethlem Royal Hospital and later worked at the Maudsley Hospital and St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. When SB came to see Thompson, he would also visit long-term patients who otherwise were seldom visited. Thompson has said that SB was "preoccupied with decrepitude, people who could hardly help themselves. "17 It was Thompson who suggested that SB begin psychotherapy with W. R. Bion in 1934. In 1935, Thompson
Pro. files
17 Geoffrey Thomson interviewed by Andy O'Mahoney, RTE. 1976.
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took a post in the Tavistock Clinic. In November 1935, SB was best man at Thompson's wedding to Ursula Stenhouse.
After war-time service, Thompson practiced privately and at the Tavistock Clinic, qualifying in psychoanalysis in 1949. He worked with the National Health Service and was a member of the Institute of Marital Studies, retiring from the Tavistock Clinic in 1970. In later years, the Thompsons and SB saw each other from time to time in London and in Paris.
Edward William Titus (1870-1952), Polish-born American bibliophile, translator, and publisher, opened his anglophone bookstore, At the Sign of the Black Manikin, in Paris in 1924. Subsidized by his wife Helena Rubinstein, he published twenty-five books under the Black Manikin imprint from 1926 to 1932: ranging from works by Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler to those by British modernist Mary Butts, from Harlem Renaissance poets Claude McKay and Countee Cullen to Anai:s Nin's An Unprofessional Study ofD. H. Lawrence, and also translations of Rimbaud and Baudelaire. In 1929 he became Editor of This Quarter (1925-1932), initiating prizes to attract submissions and encourage young writers. In This Quarter SB published translations from Italian of work by Eugenio Montale, Raffaelo Franchi, Giovanni Comisso (1930), as well as his own story "Dante and the Lobster" (1932), and many of his translations from French for the surrealist number (1932) guest edited by Andre Breton. In 1932, SB translated Rimbaud's "Le Bateau ivre" (Drunken Boat), unpublished until 1976, as a commission from Titus.
transition (1927-1938), an international avant-garde literary magazine, was founded by EugeneJolas, MariaJolas, and Elliot Paul to present new European writing to American readers and to create a forum for lin guistic experimentation: as Jolas put it, "a laboratory of the word. " Eugene Jolas's ideas about language and literature were expressed most concisely in two manifestos, "The Revolution of the Word" (1929) and "Poetry is Vertical" (1932). Among the writers published by transition were Andre Breton, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, and Dylan Thomas; transition may be best known for serially publishing sections of James Joyce's Work in Progress (1927-1935), a process in which SB was involved. SB's first published
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writing, his essay "Dante. . . Bruno. Vico. . Joyce," appeared in transition Uune 1929). He also published in transition the short stories "Assumption" and "Sedendo et Quiesciendo [sic]," poems ("For Future Reference," "Malacoda," "Enueg II," "Dortmunder," and "Ooftish"), and a review of Denis Devlin's collection of poetry Intercessions.
AfterWorldWar II, the Jolases transferred the publishing licence of transition to Georges Duthuit, who capitalized its title and changed the focus of the journal (see profile of Transition in Volume II).
Percival Arland Ussher (known as Percy until mid-1937, then as Arland, 1899-1980), essayist, critic, and translator, was born in London and studied at Trinity College Dublin (1917-1919) and St. John's College, Cambridge (1920). He settled on his family's estate in Co. Waterford, where he wrote on the Gaelic language and the way of life of the Deise Gaeltacht. His translation from Irish of Brian Merriman's The Midnight Court (1926) was prefaced byW. B. Yeats. SB visited Ussher at Cappagh, and Ussher often sent him his essays on philosophy, history, politics, and art, especially in the late 1930s and again afterWorldWar II, when he occasionally visited SB in Paris. Acerbic wit and strong opinions mark his writing, which he called "philosophical belles lettres. " He published Postsoipt on Existentialism and Other Essays (1946); The Twilight of Ideas and Other Essays (1948); The Face and Mind ofIreland (1949); a study of Jewish culture and an analysis of anti-Semitism, The Magic People (1949); a study of Shaw, Yeats, and Joyce, Three Great Irishmen (1952); a book on existentialism with reference to Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre, Journey Through Dread (1955); Sages and Schoolmen (1967); and Eros and Psyche (1976). His interest in folklore and divination is reflected in his study Twenty Two Keys to the Tarot (1957). Edited selections from Ussher's diary (1943-1977) were published as From a Dead Lantern (1978) and The]oumal ofArland Ussher (1980).
Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957), Irish painter, illustrator, novelist, and playwright, the son of John Butler Yeats and younger brother to the poet William Butler Yeats, was born in London, but spent his boyhood in County Sligo with his maternal grandparents. In 1887, he returned to London where he studied Art and established himself as an illustrator; in 1894 he married Mary Cottenham White (known as Cottie), a fellow-student at the Chiswick Art School. Although he visited Ireland
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frequently, Jack Yeats did not settle there until 1910. In 1912 he pub lished a book ofpaintings and drawings, Life in the West ofIreland, and began to work in oils. SB met Yeats through Thomas McGreevy in November 1930; over time, Yeats became a trusted older friend to SB. In the 1930s, SB occasionally attended Yeats's "at-homes" in Fitzwilliam Square, but much preferred to visit the painter in his studio. SB greatly admired Yeats's paintings and saw a correlation between them and his own work. SB owned several ofYeats's works, including the painting A Morning("a setting out without the coming home"), which he bought on what he called the "stuttering system. " Yeats was also an accomplished writer, and in 1936 SB reviewed his novel The Amaranthers in the Dublin Magazine. In 1938, Yeats wrote to Routledge, his own London publisher, on behalfofBeckett's Murphy. At the time ofYeats's 1954 Paris exhibi tion, SB wrote "Hommage a Jack B. Yeats" and elicited tributes about Yeats's work from Pierre Schneider and Jacques Putman for Les Lettres Nouvelles (April 1954). SB was deeply disappointed that he was unable to return to Dublin for Yeats's funeral in April 1957.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED
Abbot, Vivienne. "How It Was: Egan and Beckett. " Desmond Egan: The Poet and His Work. Ed. Hugh Kenner. Orono, ME: Northern Lights, 1990. 45-53.
Ackerley, C. J. Demented Particulars: The Annotated Murphy. 2nd rev. edn. Tallahassee, FL: Journal of Beckett Studies Books, 2004.
Ackerley, C. ]. , and S. E. Gontarski. The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett:
A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought. New York: Grove Press, 2004.
Adam, Antoine. The Art ofPaul Verlaine. Tr. Carl Morse. New York: New York University Press, 1963.
Adler, Alfred. The Neurotic Constitution: Outlines of a Comparative Individualistic Psychology and Psychotherapy. Tr. Bernard Glueck and John E. Lind.
New York: Moffat, 1916. Rpt. London: Kegan Paul, 1921.
Adler, Jankel. Janke! Adler. Intro. Stanley William Hayter. London: Nicholson and Watson, 1948.
Aldington, Richard. The Complete Poems ofRichard Aldington. London: Allan Wingate, 1948.
"James Joyce. " Rev. ofFinnegans Wake, by James Joyce. The Atlantic 163 Uune 1939) [supplement] "The Bookshelf' [17, 19, 21].
Life for Life's Sake: A Book of Reminiscences. London: Cassell, 1941. Alphant, Marianne, and Nathalie Leger, eds. Objet: Beckett. Paris: Centre
Pompidou, IMEC-Editeur, 2007.
Andre Lhote, 1885-1962: Cubism. New York: Leonard Hutton Galleries, 1976. Andrews, Keith. Adam Elsheimer: Paintings - Drawings - Prints. New York:
Rizzoli, 1977.
Annuaire diplomatique et consulaire de la Republique Fran�aise. Nouvelle serie. Vol.
49. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1938.
Anon. "Gontcharov's [sic] 'Oblomov. " Rev. ofOblomov, by Ivan Goncharov.
Times Literary Supplement (14 November 1929) 919.
"Murphy. By Samuel Beckett. " Rev. ofMurphy, by Samuel Beckett. Times
Literary Supplement (12 March 1938) 172.
Rev. ofJames Joyce's "Ulysses," by Stuart Gilbert. Dublin Magazine 6. 2
(April-June 1931) 64-65.
Rev. ofMurphy, by Samuel Beckett. Dublin Magazine 14. 2 (April-June 1939) 98.
719
Bibliography of works cited
Arnheim, Rudolf. Film. Tr. L. M. Sieveking and Ian F. D. Morrow. London: Faber and Faber, 1933.
Association amicale des anciens eleves de ! 'Ecole normale superieure. Paris: Hachette Universite, 1973. Supplement historique. Paris: Hachette-Universite, 1990.
Atik, Anne. How It Was: A Memoir ofSamuel Beckett. London: Faber and Faber, 2003.
Augustine. Confessions. Tr. E. B. Pusey. Everyman's Library. London: Dent, 1907.
Baedeker, Karl. Das Deutsche Reich und einige Grenzgebiete, Reisehandbuch fiir Bahn und Auto. Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1936.
Bair, Deirdre. Samuel Beckett: A Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.
Bald, Wambly. On the Left Bank, 1929-1933. Ed. Benjamin Franklin, V. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1987.
Barbera, Gioacchino. "The Life and Works of Antonello da Messina. " Antonello da Messina: Sicily's Renaissance Master. Ed. Gioacchino Barbera. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006. 17-30.
Barnett, Vivian Endicott. Kandinsky Watercolours: Catalogue Raisonne. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992-1994. 2 vols.
Barron, Stephanie, ed. "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.
Bate, W. Jackson. SamuelJohnson. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. Baudelaire, Charles. Les Fleurs du mal, The Flowers ofEvil. Tr. Richard Howard.
Boston: David R. Godine, 1982.
Oeuvres completes. Ed. Claude Pichois and Jean Ziegler. Bibliotheque de la
Pleiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1975-1976. 2 vols.
Beach, Sylvia, ed. Our Exagmination Round His Factificationfor Incamination of
Work in Progress. Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1929. Rpt. London:
Faber and Faber, 1936.
Beauvoir, Simone de. La Force de l'dge. Paris: Gallimard, 1960.
Letters to Sartre. Ed. and tr. Quintin Hoare. New York: Arcade, 1992. The Prime ofLife. Tr. Peter Green. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co. ,
1962.
Beckett, Samuel. "Alba. " Dublin Magazine 6. 4 (October-December 1931) 4.
"Alba. " Tr. A[lfred] R. Peron. Soutes 9 (1938) 41.
Alles kommt auf so viel an: Das Hamburg-Kapitel aus den "German Diaries" 2.
Oktober-4. Dezember 1936. Transcribed by Erika Tophoven. Schenefeld:
Raamin-Press, 2003.
"Assumption. " transition 16-17 Uune 1929) 268-271.
"Beckett's Letters on 'Endgame': Extracts from His Correspondence with
Director Alan Schneider. " The Village Voice 19 March 1958: 8, 15. 720
Bibliography ofworks cited
"Cascando. " Dublin Magazine 11. 4 (October-December 1936) 3-4.
"Dante . . . Bruno. Vico . . Joyce. " Our Exagmination Round His Factification for
Incamination of Work in Progress. Paris: Shakespeare and Company,
1929. 1-22.
"Dante . . . Bruno. Vico . . Joyce. " transition 16-17 Uune 1929) 242-253. "Dante and the Lobster. " This Quarter 5. 2 (December 1932) 222-236. "Denis Devlin. " Rev. ofintercessions, by Denis Devlin. transition 27
(April-May 1938) 289-294.
Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. Ed. Ruby Cohn.
New York: Grove Press, 1984.
"Dortmunder. " transition 24 Uune 1936) 10.
Dream ofFair to Middling Women. Ed. Eoin O'Brien and Edith Fournier.
London: Calder, 1992. Rpt. New York: Arcade Publishing in association
with Riverrun Press, 1993.
Drunken Boat. Ed. James Knowlson and Felix Leakey. Reading: Whiteknights
Press, 1976.
Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates. Europa Poets 3. Paris: Europa Press, 1935. "Enueg 2. " transition 24 Uune 1936) 9.
First Love and Other Shorts. New York: Grove Press, 1974.
"From the Only Poet to a Shining Whore: for Henry Crowder to Sing. "
Henry-Music. Paris: Hours Press, 1930. [6, 12-14. J
"Geer van Velde. " London Bulletin 2 (May 1938) 15.
"German Letter of 1937. " Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic
Fragment. Ed. Ruby Cohn. Tr. Martin Esslin. New York: Grove Press,
1984. German text, 51-54; English text, 170-173.
"Home Olga. " Contempo 3. 13 (February 1934) 3.
"AnImaginativeWork! " Rev. ofTheAmaranthers,byJackB. Yeats. Dublin
Magazine 11. 3 Uuly-September 1936) 80-81.
"In Memoriam: George Reavey. " Journal ofBeckett Studies 2 (Summer 1977). "Le Concentrisme. " Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment.
Ed. Ruby Cohn. New York: Grove Press, 1984. 35-42.
"Letters to Barney Rasset. " The Review ofContemporary Fiction 10. 3 (Fall 1990)
64-71.
15 Samuel Beckett to Roger Little, 18 May 1983, cited by Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 64. 711
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Frances Beckett Sinclair (known as Fanny and as Cissie, 1880-1951),
artist and musician, was the only sister ofSB's father William Beckett. She studied painting at the Dublin MetropolitanSchool of Art and at the Academie Colarossi in Paris in 1904, along with her good friends Estella Solomons and Beatrice Elvery (later Lady Glenavy). As Fannie Beckett, she exhibited her paintings in the Royal Hibernian Academy (1897, 1901-1908). In 1908, she married William Abraham (Boss)Sinclair, an art and antiques dealer; their home in Baily, Howth, Co. Dublin was a gathering-place for writers and artists. TheSinclairs moved to Kassel, Germany, in the early 1920s, where SB frequently visited them, sharing in their family and artistic life. In his Aunt Cissie, SB found a mature confidante with whom he could share interests in literature, art, and music. CissieSinclair traveled between Dublin and Kassel in 1931-1932, a time when personal difficulties, economic depression, and growing anti-Semitism were making life increasingly difficult in Germany. After the death of their daughter Ruth MargaretSinclair (known as Peggy) in May 1933, the family returned to Dublin in June. SB remained close to the Sinclairs, especially during Boss's illness and death in 1937; when Cissie was confined by rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson's disease in her later years,SB was particularly attentive and visited her whenever
he was in Ireland.
Morris Sinclair (known as Sunny or Sonny Sinclair, 1918-2007) was
SB's first cousin, the only son of Frances (Cissie) and William (Boss) Sinclair. Despite the twelve-year age difference, the cousins were close. Sinclair and his family moved permanently from Germany to Dublin in
1933. SB helped him prepare for his examinations in Modern Languages (German and French) at Trinity College Dublin. Sinclair was a gifted violinist and studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. His father and sister Peggy had died of tuberculosis, so when Sinclair became ill in autumn 1936, it was arranged for him to go to the more favorable climate ofSouth Africa (1937-1938) as a private tutor. He completed his studies at TCD in winter 1940. In 1945,Sinclair received a scholarship to study in Paris; as he hesitated about a thesis subject,SB suggested that he might write on Sartre and the influences of Husserl and Kierkegaard, offering to introduce him to Sartre. From 1948 to 1952, Sinclair worked for UNESCO, first in English translation and editing and then as a writer and producer for radio broadcasts in German. He then moved to Geneva,
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where he worked in the Public Information Office of the World Health Organization (1952-1971), becoming Director of Public Information (1971-1974). He corresponded with SB and often visited him in Paris.
Ruth Margaret Sinclair (known as Peggy, 1911-1933), daughter of Frances (Cissie) and William (Boss) Sinclair, was SB's first cousin. When her family moved to Kassel in the early 1920s, SB often visited. SB and Peggy were attracted to each other when she visited Dublin in mid-summer of 1928. Peggy studied art, music, and movement at the Schule Hellerau-Laxenburg, near Vienna, where SB visited her in September 1928 before beginning his appointment at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, but by early 1929 their intimacy had ended. She figures in several of SB's early poems and many of her qualities are reflected in the character of Smeraldina-Rima in Dream of Fair to Middling Women and "The Smeraldina's Billet-Doux," first pub lished in More Pricks Than Kicks. Peggy Sinclair died of tuberculosis in Germany in May 1933.
William Abraham Sinclair (known as Boss, 1882-1937),Jewish, an art and antiques dealer, SB's uncle by marriage to his aunt Frances (Cissie) Sinclair, was an amateur violinist and a member of the Dublin Musical Society; he had been active in the Republican movement. They lived in Howth, Co. Dublin, before their move in the early 1920s to Kassel, Germany, where he dealt in contemporary German art. Sinclair published Painting (1918), contributed art criticism to the Irish Review, lectured on art, and taught English. SB grew close to the Sinclairs during his visits to Kassel, appreciating their warmth, their easy ways, and their encouragement of his writing. In the early 1930s, economic depression and anti-Semitism made life in Germany inhospitable; Sinclair returned to Dublin in the summer of 1933 after the death of his daughter Margaret (Peggy) Sinclair. He died from tuberculosis in 1937. Fulfilling a death-bed promise to Boss, his twin brother Henry Sinclair pursued a lawsuit against Oliver St. John Gogarty, who had libeled them and their grandfather in his book As I Was Going Down Sackville Street; SB gave testimony in the case in November 1937.
Estella Solomons(1882-1968),Irishpainter,wasmarriedtoSeumas O'Sullivan, but used her maiden name professionally. She was a
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political activist who became involved in the Easter Rising and the War of Independence. She studied with William Orpen at the Metropolitan School ofArt in Dublin, and with Walter Osborne at the Royal Hibernian Academy, and in London. Solomons painted portraits of many Irish liter ary and artistic figures, including Jack B. Yeats, and showed her work regularly at the Royal Hibernian Academy Exhibitions. She was named an Honorary Royal Hibernian Academician. SB attended the opening of Solomons's exhibition (with her cousin Louise Jacobs and friend Mary Duncan) at the Arlington Gallery in 1935. Having studied Art together, Estella Solomons and Frances (Cissie) Sinclair were close friends. Estella Solomons took an interest in SB and his work, and her sister the singer Sophie Jacobs (nee Solomons, 1887-1972) befriended SB in the 1930s in Paris and London. SB occasionally visited the home of Solomons and O'Sullivan, "The Grange," in Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin.
Francis Stuart (ne Henry Francis Montgomery Stuart, 1902-2000),
Australian-born Irish novelist, poet, and dramatist, converted to
Catholicism in 1920, and was married to Iseult MacBride, the daughter
ofMaudGonne. WithA. J. Leventhal,CecilSalkeld,andothers,hebegan
the short-lived literary magazine Tomorrow (1924). SB's letters mention,
among Stuart's prolific early writings, the novels Women and God (1931),
which was dedicated to Thomas McGreevy; The Coloured Dome (1932);
and The Great Squire (1939). In 1939, Stuart gave a series of academic
lectures in Germany, and then taught English and Irish Literature in
Berlin in 1940. From 1942 to January 1944, Stuart read German radio
broadcasts aimed at Ireland. Although Stuart claimed that he wrote to
SB in August 1942, and that SB replied, the letter has not been found.
After World War II, Stuart lived in Germany, France, and England; he
married Gertrude Meissner in 1954, returning to Ireland in 1958. He is
perhaps best known for his book Black List Section H (1971). Although
"men ofdiffering viewpoints," he and SB met occasionally in Paris after
16
Jean Thomas (1900-1983), French educator, entered the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1920, became Agrege-repetiteur (1926-1932), and Secretaire general of the ENS (1933). He taught French Language and
16 Elbom. Francis Stuart. 8. 714
World War II.
Literature at the Sorbonne (1934-1936), French Literature at the University of Poitiers (1936-1938), and Modem Comparative Literature at the University of Lyon (1938-1944). Thomas published studies of Diderot, Musset, and Sainte-Beuve. He was appointed as Directeur du cabinet du Ministre de ! 'Education Nationale (October 1944) and Chef du service des relations universitaires et artistiques avec l'etranger (1945); having been a member of the French delegation to the constituting conference of UNESCO, he became its Director of Cultural Activities (1947-1954), and then Assistant Director General of UNESCO (1955-1960). In 1932, Thomas wrote a letter of reference for SB, and in his position with UNESCO suggested SB for various translation projects during the 1950s, most notably the English translation of The Mexican Anthology edited by Octavio Paz. Thomas's eminence in French public and international education culminated in his appointment as President de la Commission de laRepublique Frarn;aise pour ! 'education, la science, et la culture (1972-1980).
Arthur Geoffrey Thompson (known to SB as Geoffrey, 1905-1976) was, with his brother Alan, a childhood friend of SB; they studied together at Portora Royal School and Trinity College Dublin. They shared interests in music, literature, and sports, and, while students at TCD, attended the Abbey Theatre together. Thompson qualified in Medicine at TCD in 1928, then studied Biochemistry in London and Paris as a Rockefeller Research Fellow. Returning to Dublin in 1930, he took up the position of Physician at Baggot St. Hospital. Thompson became increasingly interested in mental illness manifested as physical symptoms, and moved to London in 1934 to train in psychoanalysis, a specialty that could not be pursued in Dublin at that time. He was resident Senior House Physician at Bethlem Royal Hospital and later worked at the Maudsley Hospital and St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. When SB came to see Thompson, he would also visit long-term patients who otherwise were seldom visited. Thompson has said that SB was "preoccupied with decrepitude, people who could hardly help themselves. "17 It was Thompson who suggested that SB begin psychotherapy with W. R. Bion in 1934. In 1935, Thompson
Pro. files
17 Geoffrey Thomson interviewed by Andy O'Mahoney, RTE. 1976.
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Profiles
took a post in the Tavistock Clinic. In November 1935, SB was best man at Thompson's wedding to Ursula Stenhouse.
After war-time service, Thompson practiced privately and at the Tavistock Clinic, qualifying in psychoanalysis in 1949. He worked with the National Health Service and was a member of the Institute of Marital Studies, retiring from the Tavistock Clinic in 1970. In later years, the Thompsons and SB saw each other from time to time in London and in Paris.
Edward William Titus (1870-1952), Polish-born American bibliophile, translator, and publisher, opened his anglophone bookstore, At the Sign of the Black Manikin, in Paris in 1924. Subsidized by his wife Helena Rubinstein, he published twenty-five books under the Black Manikin imprint from 1926 to 1932: ranging from works by Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler to those by British modernist Mary Butts, from Harlem Renaissance poets Claude McKay and Countee Cullen to Anai:s Nin's An Unprofessional Study ofD. H. Lawrence, and also translations of Rimbaud and Baudelaire. In 1929 he became Editor of This Quarter (1925-1932), initiating prizes to attract submissions and encourage young writers. In This Quarter SB published translations from Italian of work by Eugenio Montale, Raffaelo Franchi, Giovanni Comisso (1930), as well as his own story "Dante and the Lobster" (1932), and many of his translations from French for the surrealist number (1932) guest edited by Andre Breton. In 1932, SB translated Rimbaud's "Le Bateau ivre" (Drunken Boat), unpublished until 1976, as a commission from Titus.
transition (1927-1938), an international avant-garde literary magazine, was founded by EugeneJolas, MariaJolas, and Elliot Paul to present new European writing to American readers and to create a forum for lin guistic experimentation: as Jolas put it, "a laboratory of the word. " Eugene Jolas's ideas about language and literature were expressed most concisely in two manifestos, "The Revolution of the Word" (1929) and "Poetry is Vertical" (1932). Among the writers published by transition were Andre Breton, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, and Dylan Thomas; transition may be best known for serially publishing sections of James Joyce's Work in Progress (1927-1935), a process in which SB was involved. SB's first published
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writing, his essay "Dante. . . Bruno. Vico. . Joyce," appeared in transition Uune 1929). He also published in transition the short stories "Assumption" and "Sedendo et Quiesciendo [sic]," poems ("For Future Reference," "Malacoda," "Enueg II," "Dortmunder," and "Ooftish"), and a review of Denis Devlin's collection of poetry Intercessions.
AfterWorldWar II, the Jolases transferred the publishing licence of transition to Georges Duthuit, who capitalized its title and changed the focus of the journal (see profile of Transition in Volume II).
Percival Arland Ussher (known as Percy until mid-1937, then as Arland, 1899-1980), essayist, critic, and translator, was born in London and studied at Trinity College Dublin (1917-1919) and St. John's College, Cambridge (1920). He settled on his family's estate in Co. Waterford, where he wrote on the Gaelic language and the way of life of the Deise Gaeltacht. His translation from Irish of Brian Merriman's The Midnight Court (1926) was prefaced byW. B. Yeats. SB visited Ussher at Cappagh, and Ussher often sent him his essays on philosophy, history, politics, and art, especially in the late 1930s and again afterWorldWar II, when he occasionally visited SB in Paris. Acerbic wit and strong opinions mark his writing, which he called "philosophical belles lettres. " He published Postsoipt on Existentialism and Other Essays (1946); The Twilight of Ideas and Other Essays (1948); The Face and Mind ofIreland (1949); a study of Jewish culture and an analysis of anti-Semitism, The Magic People (1949); a study of Shaw, Yeats, and Joyce, Three Great Irishmen (1952); a book on existentialism with reference to Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre, Journey Through Dread (1955); Sages and Schoolmen (1967); and Eros and Psyche (1976). His interest in folklore and divination is reflected in his study Twenty Two Keys to the Tarot (1957). Edited selections from Ussher's diary (1943-1977) were published as From a Dead Lantern (1978) and The]oumal ofArland Ussher (1980).
Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957), Irish painter, illustrator, novelist, and playwright, the son of John Butler Yeats and younger brother to the poet William Butler Yeats, was born in London, but spent his boyhood in County Sligo with his maternal grandparents. In 1887, he returned to London where he studied Art and established himself as an illustrator; in 1894 he married Mary Cottenham White (known as Cottie), a fellow-student at the Chiswick Art School. Although he visited Ireland
717
Profiles
Profiles
frequently, Jack Yeats did not settle there until 1910. In 1912 he pub lished a book ofpaintings and drawings, Life in the West ofIreland, and began to work in oils. SB met Yeats through Thomas McGreevy in November 1930; over time, Yeats became a trusted older friend to SB. In the 1930s, SB occasionally attended Yeats's "at-homes" in Fitzwilliam Square, but much preferred to visit the painter in his studio. SB greatly admired Yeats's paintings and saw a correlation between them and his own work. SB owned several ofYeats's works, including the painting A Morning("a setting out without the coming home"), which he bought on what he called the "stuttering system. " Yeats was also an accomplished writer, and in 1936 SB reviewed his novel The Amaranthers in the Dublin Magazine. In 1938, Yeats wrote to Routledge, his own London publisher, on behalfofBeckett's Murphy. At the time ofYeats's 1954 Paris exhibi tion, SB wrote "Hommage a Jack B. Yeats" and elicited tributes about Yeats's work from Pierre Schneider and Jacques Putman for Les Lettres Nouvelles (April 1954). SB was deeply disappointed that he was unable to return to Dublin for Yeats's funeral in April 1957.
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