Beach’s earliest surviving record of costs accrued for promoting, printing, and shipping Ulysses was compiled almost six months after the novel’s publication. Joyce’s relentless revisions and additions to the proofs reduced Beach’s initial profits; the printing costs were double what Maurice Darantiere had estimated in 1921. The unusual nature of Joyce’s professional relationship with Beach, who acted at times as his agent, secretary, and friend, is also evident in her bookkeeping, which includes fees for the seventeen-volume edition of Arabian Nights Joyce requested and for Dr. Borsch, the eye doctor Beach recommended to the author.
Sylvia Beach (1887–1962)
“Ulysses Account Rendered” for Shakespeare and Company, Paris, 27 July 1922
Courtesy of the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York