Autograph letter, signed, on both sides of a 3½x5½" card, with original envelope addressed by Joyce postmarked at both Paris and London, May 4 and 5, 1936 respectively.
Joyce addresses Cyril Yeates, the husband of his cousin Gretta. In full:
"Dear Yeates: This is just to thank you and Gretta for you promptness in making inquiries. I shall not be able to come to a decision for about a fortnight. At the present moment the general opinion of the doctors is that it is definitely not an incurable case and probably not now to any great extent even a mental case but one of acute nervous disequilibrium. If that is so either the diagnoses of a dozen of the leading psychiatrists in Europe that it was a progressing demential case of the kind which is finally incurable if it progresses were all wrong or the series of injections at the eleventh hour as arrested the final stage. In any case her transfer here was a psychological blunder which has to be undone. Sincerely yours, James Joyce." Dated 4.v.'36, 7 Rue Edouard Valentin, Paris 7.
Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle, trained as a ballet dancer under the great Isadora Duncan. At the start of the 1930's, during a period when she was involved with Samuel Beckett, Lucia began to exhibit symptoms of mental illness. In 1934 she became a patient of Carl Jung and was soon diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 1935 she was placed in an institution in Ivry-sur-Seine, France.
Provenance: Sale of The Collection of Jonathan Goodwin, Sotheby Parke Bernet, October 25, 1977, Lot 467. The Collection of Rik Thompson.
Condition:
Envelope damaged from opening, with a large chip from rear, author's name in ink in another hand on front; card a bit browned but near fine.