After Ellmann: The State of Joyce Biography

Biographical Studies of Joyce remain framed by Richard Ellmann's monumental 1959 biography, James Joyce. Despite the publication of dozens of Joyce biographies, many short, despite various more closely researched period studies (on Dublin and Trieste), and despite innovative biographies on members of the Joyce family (notably Nora and Lucia), there is a gaping need for a radical new study of the author's life which takes on board recent scholarship. The latter years of Joyce's life, the years of Finnegans Wake in particular, are in urgent need of systematic scholarly biographical recasting.