Stephen James Joyce (15 February 1932 – 23 January 2020) was the grandson of

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

and the

executor An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, is sometimes used. Executor of will An executor is a legal term referring to a person named by the maker o ...

of Joyce's literary estate.

Biography

Joyce was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, France, the son of James Joyce's son, Giorgio Joyce, and Helen Joyce (''née'' Kastor). Joyce graduated in 1958 from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where he once roomed with Paul Matisse, the grandson of French impressionist painter

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

, and with Prince

Sadruddin Aga Khan Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan ( 1933 – 2003) was a French-born statesman and activist who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1966 to 1977, during which he reoriented the agency's focus beyond Europe and prepared it for a ...

. Thereafter, he worked for the

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

on African development. He retired from the OECD in 1991 to focus on managing his grandfather's estate. He and his wife, Solange Raythchine Joyce, lived in the

Île de Ré Île de Ré (; variously spelled Rhé or Rhéa; Poitevin dialect, Poitevin: ''ile de Rét''; , ) is an island off the Atlantic coast of France near La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, on the northern side of the Pertuis d'Antioche strait. Its high ...

in France. They had no children. With Joyce's death, James Joyce has no living descendants.

Work with the James Joyce estate

Joyce and Seán Sweeney were the joint

trustee Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, refers to anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the ...

s of the Estate of James Joyce. As a trustee, he brought numerous

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

s or threats of legal action against scholars, biographers, and artists attempting to quote from Joyce's literary work or personal correspondence. In 2004, Joyce threatened legal action against the Irish government when the ''Rejoyce Dublin 2004'' festival proposed public reading of excerpts of '' Ulysses'' on

Bloomsday Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere on 16 June. The day is named after Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Joyce's 1922 novel ''Ulysses (novel), Ulysses' ...

. In 1988, he destroyed a collection of letters written by Lucia Joyce, his aunt. In 1989, he forced Brenda Maddox to delete a postscript concerning Lucia from her biography, ''Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom''. After 1995, he announced no permissions would be granted to quote from his grandfather's work. Libraries holding letters by James Joyce were unable to show them without permission. Versions of his work online were disallowed. Joyce said he was protecting his grandfather's and his family's reputation, but he would sometimes grant permission to use material in exchange for fees that were deemed by some as "extortionate". Bowker, Gordon
"An end to bad heir days: The posthumous power of the literary estate"
''The Independent'', 6 January 2012. On 1 January 2012, 70 calendar years after James Joyce's death, all of his works entered the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

in much of the world, a transition "talked up in certain quarters as though it were a bookish version of the destruction of the

Death Star The Death Star is a fictional space station and superweapon featured in the ''Star Wars'' space-opera franchise. Constructed by the autocratic Galactic Empire, the Death Star is capable of obliterating entire planets, and serves to enforce ...

, with Stephen Joyce cast as a highbrow

Darth Vader Darth Vader () is a fictional character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. He was first introduced in the original film trilogy as the primary antagonist and one of the leaders of the Galactic Empire. He has become one of the most iconic villain ...

suddenly no longer in a position to breathe heavily down the necks of rebel Joyceans." "On New Year's Eve ecember 31, 2011 the Twitter feed of

UbuWeb UbuWeb is a "a pirate shadow library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts." It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives. The site was created by ...

... posted a link to an article in ''The Irish Times'' about the expiry of European copyright on the work of James Joyce. The link was accompanied by a curt message to Joyce's grandson and sole living descendant: "Fuck you, Stephen Joyce. EU copyright on James Joyce's works ends at midnight." However, although it is no longer necessary to receive permission from James Joyce's estate to quote from the work he published in his lifetime, "the status of posthumous publications — the letter and manuscripts, for instance ... is still unclear". In addition, in the US, some of his work remains protected by copyright. Prior to this, in 2007, Joyce's hold on the estate had already been delimited by a fair use suit brought by Carol Loeb Schloss and the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society's Fair Use Project. When the

Central Bank of Ireland The Central Bank of Ireland () is the national central bank for Ireland within the Eurosystem. It was the Irish central bank from 1943 to 1998, issuing the Irish pound. It is also the country's main financial regulatory authority, and since 2 ...

issued a ten euro James Joyce

commemorative coin A commemorative coin is a coin issued to commemorate some particular event or issue with a distinct design with reference to the occasion on which they were issued. Some coins of this category serve as collector's items only, while most commemora ...

on 10 April 2013, Joyce described the coin and the circumstances of its issue as "one of the greatest insults to the Joyce family that has ever been perpetrated in Ireland". He complained of a lack of consultation over the coin; he objected to an error in a Joycean quotation inscribed on the coin; he was upset by the design of the portrait on the coin, calling it "the most unlikely likeness of Joyce ever produced"; and he described as highly insensitive and offensive the decision to issue the coin on the anniversary of the death of his grandmother, Nora Joyce, who died in 1951.Joyce grandson describes Central Bank coin 'one of the greatest insults to Joyce family'
''The Irish Times'', 13 April 2013.

Notes and references

External links

"Archiving Joyce & Joyce's Archive: Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, and Copyright"
(pdf), Jessica Michelle Lucero; PhD dissertation, Univ. of Nevada, 12 January 2012 * Scudamore, James
"Ecce Senex: Stephen James Joyce"
''Granta 166'', 8th February 2024. {{DEFAULTSORT:Joyce, Stephen James 1932 births 2020 deaths Harvard University alumni James Joyce